Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Blawgs, Law Firm Marketing

That's the word from legal marketing pro John Sailer.

First it was The Yellow Book, The Real Yellow Pages and all the other phonebook directories.  Now it's the online attorney directories like LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Findlaw's attorney listing service that just may be the latest casualties of Google and the other search engines as more and more law firms develop websites and leverage pay-per-click and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. 

As recent as five years ago, it was a sign of success for a law firm to advertise on the back cover of the local yellow pages directory and have firm listings and attorney listings with LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Findlaw - and it made good business sense.  But the benefits of using these legal directories have been declining for the last several years with many law firms either reducing their spending on directory services or are canceling their agreements altogether.

And the reason per John,

The directories and their ala cart services are typically overpriced for the value they provide as client-acquisition tools, especially when compared to pay-per-click campaigns, banner ads and other web-based marketing efforts.

And it doesn't need to be banner ads or pay per click. Organic search results in Google may be readily obtainable by law firms.

If a law firm's website were optimized to be found on Google, not done with most law firm websites, traffic to the firm's site, practice area pages, and lawyer bio's from Google would far exceed the traffic coming from banners and sponsored links. Would also exceed the traffic coming from from FindLaw or Martindale.

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Just got off the phone with a law firm administrator in a less than 5 person who volunteered they're paying $2,000 a month for a FindLaw website. Because it wasn't generating the work expected, she said the're calling to cancel. It's not the first firm with a pretty nice looking FindLaw site who's contacted me in search of a more effective Internet presence.

There's got to be firms which have had results from these websites, but that's an awful steep monthly charge. Especially, when there is a significant up front charge.

I practiced law for 17 years and spent a ton of money on yellow page ads. I recall a full page ad cost $60,000/year or $5,000/month. Maybe that's the basis for charging thousands of dollars a month for a law firm website. Law firms moving from yellow pages are an easy target because 2k a month looks like a steal.

What do you guys think? Are other firms getting results from these websites? They look pretty good, but is the return on investment there?

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Looks like FindLaw will need to remove the "Times Top 50' patch from the bottom of their website. FindLaw, included in Times' 50 coolest Web sites for 2005, is not included in Times' 50 coolest Web sites for 2006.

As Bob Ambrogi says there's not a legal site on the list. Perhaps an opening for LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's lawyers.com or Nolo Press' consumer and small business website.

Technorati Tags: FindLaw

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I jumped on FindLaw and LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell last year for not making any real effort to teach lawyers what Internet marketing was all about. Being that these two companies pride themselves in offering the finest in legal marketing solutions and bring in more more money from lawyers than all else combined, you'd think they could spare a buck or two and do some educational programs about Internet marketing.

FindLaw's communications person responded and we had an exchange of what I thought they could do. May have nothing to do with my prompting, but FindLaw has been offering a Webcast series on Internet marketing, the next one being on August 10, 'Converting Clicks to Qualified Clients.' They did one earlier on the use of blogs for marketing.

And to FindLaw's credit they're smart enough to know they may not have the in-house expertise to conduct the seminars. They invite outside experts with domain expertise who are then hosted by FindLaw.

I may have missed it, but I do not recall Martindale-Hubbell doing anything except having some programs on how to leverage their own products.

Is FindLaw offering near as much as bloggers when it comes to sharing practical information on Internet marketing? No. It's not close. But at least they are trying.

Technorati Tags: Martindale-Hubbell, LexisNexis, FindLaw

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American Lawyer Media (ALM) has begun to develop an Internet presence through participation in the blogosphere discussion. LexisNexis and Thomson FindLaw have ignored participation. It may be that the later two companies believe they can maintain their dualopoly of selling legal research & related services longer without active discussion on the Internet.

American Lawyer Media, through it's own blogs, not the featured law blogs on Law.com, have begun to establish an Internet presence. It's not the blogs alone, but listening to Internet discussion on other blogs and joining the discussion via comments on blog posts, emails to blog publishers, and emails from ALM bloggers to ALM senior management about issues raised on the blogosphere. This is all being done in a transparent fashion that will make people more trusting of ALM, build relationships and serve the company well in the long haul.

Here's specific examples. I blogged about not having widespread WiFi for attendees at ALM's LegalTech Conference a few weeks ago. Monica Bay, an editor with ALM and publisher of The Common Scold blog, commented on my blog that ALM would look into the issue for next year. She also emailed me, copying ALM senior management, that they were working on it and pointing out some places at LegalTech where WiFi could be picked up.

I also recently blogged about another issue of concern to the legal community. This morning there was an email, copying me, from Monica Bay to senior ALM management about the issue.

Marketing these days is a discussion. A company needs to communicate with their customers and their customer's influencers. This communication needs to be done in an open and transparent fashion. The danger of failing to participate is real.

In addition, when a company is the subject of criticism on the net, they better have an effective way to respond. Press releases or, even worse, marketing communications coming weeks or months or later, are way to late to stem the tide of Internet discussion about a company's deficiency.

LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell senior management have posted a comments on my blog a few times and there have been the exchange of emails about my blog posts. Thomson FindLaw has never posted a comment on my blog, that I recall, but I have exchanged emails and had discussions with their communications' person. Rather than jumping into an open Internet discussion and engaging the Internet legal community at large on an issue I posted, the companies were only responding to me.

I urged LexisNexis and Thomson FindLaw to begin corporate blogs almost a year ago. Despite hundreds, if not thousands of corporate blogs having been launched and the legal industry being among the most active blogosphere, the two companies have said no go.

That's disappointing when LexisNexis and Thomson FindLaw are likely earning in excess of a Billion Dollars from law firms. Ought to be equally concerning when I here from law firms that these companies products are often lacking.

ALM still has a ways to go. Take some of that internal email and get it onto your blogs so the legal community as a whole can engage in real time discussion. This discussion is only going to improve your products & services as well as your relations with bloggers, who have the ear of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of your customers.

But at least ALM is entering the discussion. Been waiting 11 months for a LexisNexis or Thomson FindLaw blog. How many more months will it be?

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After reading a Washington Times article, Steve Rubel brought up the issue of blogs and interest conflicts.

I have both praised and criticized companies here in the past. I think it's part of what makes my blog compelling. I call it as I see it. That may be well and good but what if one day these same companies comes calling on my employer for PR support and they discover these criticisms?

Like Steve, I call it the way I see it. And it costs me. I may never get to speak at the ABA TechShow for comments I have made about their programs. Could also be the same for the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) after LexisNexis' Martindale-Hubbell, a large sponsor of the LMA national conference, got upset about my criticism of Martindale during my presentation at last year's LMA conference. Though partnering with LexBlog is probably the best way for FindLaw or Martindale-Hubbell to deliver a a good & effective blog solution to thousands of their law firm customers, they'll probably shy away because of my candor as to their products on this blog.

Along those same lines, I blog about what potential competitors are blogging. Gets a little scary but if I am going to cover the area of Internet marketing through blogs & RSS, I need to share what's out there.

Mom always said to give the world the best you had and things will work out fine. Goes here too, win or lose.

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Online viral marketing is more powerful than the old way of big and expensive marketing campaigns for inferior services and products is the essence of Seth Godin's latest post.

The bottom line is that it's way way easier to start things than it used to be (opening a movie big costs a tenth of a billion dollars, while opening a blog costs about twenty). The natural, user-driven networks that make a product succeed or fail rarely hit all at once. But the snowball effect online is far more powerful than the old-world scream & dream approach.

So, what's it mean to you?

• Make something worth making.
• Sell something worth talking about.
• Believe in what you do because you may have to do it for a long time before it catches on.
• Don't listen to the first people who give you feedback.
• Don't give up. Not for a while, anyway.

Next week, LexBlog takes its next step in the growth of the company. We'll open our Bozeman, Montana office with a heck of a team I'll be introducing soon. LexBlog has attracted such talented folks because we're making something worth making, we believe in what we do, we don't listen to the blog naysayers and we're not going to give up.

Best of all, the growth of this profitable company is the result of this blog and the support of our clients. We don't have offices and cubes filled with marketing, advertising, PR and sales people. I started talking about using blogs for marketing legal services to an audience of one - me - back in November, 2003. Now, almost 1,000 posts later, many of the largest law firms as well as skilled small firm practitioners across the country are using blogs produced by LexBlog.

Now FindLaw, a web developer for lawyers among other things, is selling something that with a long stretch could be described as a blog product. LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, a lawyer directory which foolishly boasts to be the leading client development company for the legal profession, will surely follow with a blog product driven by profits and not quality. Other developers who pooh-poohed blogs earlier this year will jump on the blog bandwagon to keep up with the Joneses.

It'll be a good fight but for the reasons Seth cites, I like LexBlog's chances of remaining the leading provider of professional marketing blogs to the legal profession.

Now I have to get back to playing catch up on serving our existing clients. We're not bringing on more troops for nothing.

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LexBlog is a year old. I founded the company with the belief that I knew as much or more about helping lawyers market their legal services on the Internet as the large players. I also knew that lawyers needed a turnkey marketing solution that really worked to enhance their reputation and create an effective Internet presence.

It wasn't happening with law firm Web sites built by old traditional legal publishing companies, who had no inherent skill in helping lawyers market their legal services and certainly had no skills as a technology company. Law firms were buying Web sites from large companies like Martindale-Hubbell and West (now Findlaw) as they knew who these companies were and the companies had a fleet of former book sales people knocking on law firm doors.

I knew that by assembling a small team of talented and driven people who really cared about the customers we could develop a top notch Internet marketing solution that could compete against the big boys. Heck, unlike employees in large corporations, employees like us in small businesses had to do an excellent job for lawyers - the existence of our company depended on it. We weren't merely working for a bonus or a larger office at the end of the year.

One year in, we're alive and kick'en and ready to take on the LexisNexis' and FindLaw's of the world. Sure, they may have more people and more money but we have the better part of a hundred clients I deeply care about and are on our way to having two hundred or more law firm blogs by the end of the year. I expect the big boys to come out with blog products in the coming months. But with the team of young tigers LexBlog has assembled in design, marketing, customer support and programming, LexBlog will be delivering a superior product.

Seth Godin has a great post today about small companies like LexBlog out performing large traditional companies. I couldn't agree more on why Seth says 'Small is the new big.'

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I received an email from Kyle Christensen, a communications person with Thomson-FindLaw, the end of last week responding to my post criticizing Thomson-FindLaw and LexisNexis Martindale for their minimal efforts in educating lawyers about Internet marketing.

It's wonderful that Thomson-FindLaw is engaging in this online discussion and is looking for ways to have a presence on the blogosphere. Here's a little of what Kyle and I discussed in an email exchange covering both what FindLaw is doing to educate lawyers and their request to learn how to enter this online discussion on the blogosphere.

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