Law blog success targeting just one person

I was recently explaining to a group of lawyers and law firm professionals that traffic doesn’t matter when it comes to blog posts.

One of the firm’s professionals stopped me and asked “Why are marketing experts advising the firm that blog success ought to be measured by web traffic.” I explained that it may be just me, but a successful blog post can reach one person. Just one, not even two.

How so?

By strategically targeting just one company or one person in some blog posts.

Who might these targets be?

• Prospective clients and, perhaps, some of their employees, including in-house counsel.
• The most influential bloggers in your niche, wether they be lawyers, non-lawyers, industry bloggers or media professionals.
• Leading mainstream reporters and publishers covering your niche.
• Prospective business partners – companies and specific employees.
• Referral sources, individuals and companies/firms.
• Associations in your niche and their executive directors and conference coordinators.

How do you reach these folks via your blog? There are many ways, but here’s the basic game plan.

• Set up RSS feeds/alerts so you see anytime these companies or associations are mentioned. 
• Research whether these organizations  have blogs. Subscribe to RSS feeds of relevant blogs and blogs on which the people you want to engage are blogging. Do the same for associations.
• Subscribe to RSS feeds of the publication or column/section for the reporters you are looking to engage and meet.
• Set up a Twitter list for these organizations and people. Call the list “strategic blogging.”

First, listen. Yes, just listen before you blog anything.

Second, engage.

• When you see news on a company, organization, or person you are following, blog it, sharing your insight and commentary. Make sure the news is something your followers would be interested in and is of news value. You don’t want to be regurgitating press releases to suck up to folks.
• When one of the people or organizations blog or report on something of interest to your followers and/or people interested in your niche area, share it with block quote attributes, again adding your insight and commentary.
• Let the company or person know you blogged regarding them or what they reported. Better than an email with a soft touch “as a courtesy to you, I thought I’d let you know,” I like to share the post on Twitter with a hat tip to the relevant company person, ie, “title of post – source of post (name of your blog) url of post, h/t @wolters_kluwer.” The company or person will see it and usually engage back via Twitter (like or reply).
• In the case of a company, you may see the company and various people in the company favorite or retweet your tweet. You may also find them commenting on your blog.
• As appropriate, take it to the next level by connecting on LinkedIn and, next, offering to meet in person, socially, ie coffee or lunch.

Does this stuff work? You bet.

I have been invited to dinners with executives from multi-billion companies I’d like my company to work with at some point. I have been invited to speak at conferences. It’s led to new work for my company.

There you have it. You can do a blog post with a goal of reaching one person of being a success. 10,000 unique visitors may be worth much less.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Calgary Reviews