Niche blogging, not limiting your business to a niche, critical for lawyer’s success
Blogging on a niche topic does not mean that your entire law practice is limited to that niche.
Think of a lawyer that gets to attend a leading conference year after year because she or he covers a niche topic. Maybe its insurance bad faith claims. The lawyer produces a killer outline of updates on the state’s bad faith law each year which is distributed with the presentation.
It’s that niche which gets the lawyer in the door, that results in everyone knowing of the lawyer. However, all the lawyers at the conference know that if the lawyer is contacted by someone with a good case having nothing to do with bad faith the lawyer is going to take it. Bad faith claims are not all the lawyer does, but by marketing to that niche the lawyer has made a name for themself.
Blogs are the same. Don’t give into your fears that if you a blog on a niche, i.e., insurance bad faith claims, that you’ll never get another wrongful death or general commercial litigation case. Fact is if you don’t get your name out there by marketing on a niche topic, you may never get a crack at those other cases.
Scott Allen, a 20-year veteran technology entrepreneur, executive, and consultant posts this morning on the advantages of blogging on a niche topic from his own experience.
I felt like I wasn’t getting as much business as I should have been, given how hot the topic of my primary business is (I advice companies on how to make effective business use of social networking and social media). So I narrowed my niche — I decided to focus in on one particular area of specialization (in my case, the use of LinkedIn). I started a blog specifically on the topic, did some free teleclasses, signed with a publisher to be executive editor on a book series about it, etc.
And business started booming. But here’s the funny thing… NOT just on the topic of LinkedIn consulting, but for a much broader range of services. See, the highly focused marketing on what is a very hot topic attracted media, prospective clients, publishers, etc. I became ‘the go-to guy’ on the topic, but that opened up opportunities for a broader scope of work……
Focusing on a niche doesn’t mean you have to stop offering other products or services — it just means that you have to find a way to clearly distinguish yourself from all of your competitors in one particular offering or to one particular market segment. You can then offer related products and services, either as an upsell to existing customers or even as an alternative to your primary product or service for those for whom it’s not a good fit.
LexBlog, with its subscription based business model, is totally focused on our client lawyers being successful with their blogs. I am constantly advising that a niche blog is the key to success.