In such an unprecedented time, being thoughtful and strategic in how you communicate is critical. To help you do so, we put together our thoughts on how law firms can best communicate during this crisis in Michelle's latest blog post.

While not every Business Journal has a dedicated legal reporter, most have someone covering law firms as part of their beat. For the Birmingham Business Journal, that’s Angel Coker. She joined the publication two years ago. Before that, she was an editor at a small paper in Mississippi, and also worked at the Tuscaloosa News for three years. We asked Angel about her beat, how she finds sources and story ideas and what she’s looking for when working with law firm marketing and PR folks. 

Bloomberg Law is known for its coverage of the business of law, particularly Big Law. It has become a go-to source for information on the legal industry as a whole, as well as specific practices with newsletters published under the Bloomberg Industry Group banner. 

Personal referrals are the gold standard in law firm business development. So how can law firm marketers leverage them? Enter client testimonials.

Welcome to the Roaring '20s! While we may not be sneaking illegal alcohol into speakeasies or envying that newfangled technology called the automobile, this new decade promises to be as unforgettable as its predecessor 100 years ago. But what about the law firm marketing world? 

If you're like us, you've spent the last month researching and buying gifts for others. But what about gifts for you, dear legal marketer? We've got you covered.

To a law firm marketer, no Hollywood monster flick or haunted graveyard can compare to the fear that budget season can bring. And with good reason. It’s a time when everything you and your team do is under scrutiny, and what you can accomplish in the coming year is up for grabs. Everything depends on getting your numbers right — and having them approved.

Case studies are critical tools for showcasing expertise, illustrating competitive differentiators and demonstrating how your firm can help solve clients’ problems. However, if they are written badly (like most law firms’ case studies are), clients won’t read them.

Forget orange… client experience is the new black. Thanks to greater competition and increased client demands, law firms with superior client experience will enjoy more loyalty and higher profits than those that don’t. So how can marketers improve their firm’s client experience? Enter marketing automation.

You carefully craft a press release. You go through rounds of internal edits and approvals. The quote is massaged more than LeBron James’ ego. You send it out to the media… and the published story is chock-full of errors. Once people are exposed to misinformation, it’s incredibly difficult to remove its influence. So what can you do if the media gets your facts wrong?

Remember when content marketing was a new concept? Remember debating why a law firm would ever create a blog? It seemed radical at the time, but even blogging is now considered passé in some circles. So how do you keep up? The best way I know how is to read.

As a marketer, you’ve spent your career justifying your budget and making the case for more money. That’s why studies showing a clear link between marketing spend and growth are so helpful, especially in a profession dominated by skepticism and resistance to change. 

We took our years of experience with content projects and put together a list of 7 critical things you must decide before your writers ever set their fingers to their keyboards. We hope this saves you time and money on your next project.

If you’ve ever updated a law firm website or embarked on content projects like updating attorney bios, you know how complex the process can be. Every lawyer has an opinion, from the important to the trivial. So how can you avoid these challenges and ensure your content project runs smoothly?

Take any law firm’s website, newsletter or social media content and cover up the name of the firm. Can you tell who the firm is without the name? Can you tell what their values are or the sort of firm it is? Or does it sound like another ship in the sea of legal sameness, while (ironically) claiming to be different?

If you’ve ever been given negative feedback sandwiched in between positive compliments, then you’ve had a shit sandwich before. The good news (the yummy bread): Email marketing is incredibly effective for B2B companies. The bad news (the stinky stuff): Your email list degrades by about 22.5% every year. More good news (another slice of yummy bread): There are lots of ways to grow your email list.

While the worst thing a law firm can do is to fake diversity, you should showcase your positive diversity numbers and (genuine) efforts to improve. In our latest blog post, Steven Gallo shows you how.

Last month, I was sitting backstage at The Ellen DeGeneres Show as my good friend danced onstage to the song “Wow.” by Post Malone. While I sat there — both worried and excited for my friend — Rob Lowe casually walked past me a few feet away. At the same time, Will Smith’s “people” were emailing and texting us, along with Good Morning America, Inside Edition, Steve Harvey and many more.

In our latest blog post, Michelle tells the story of her friend’s overnight internet fame experience and provide lessons that legal marketers can take from it.