It’s easy to get lost in the complexities of a legal issue and the nuances of an industry, but effective marketing should always center around one thing: how does it make people feel about your firm? This is one of many insights that Strauss Troy’s director of marketing Jennifer Gault has acquired in her more than 12-year career spanning the retail, nonprofit and construction sectors.
In this episode, Jennifer discusses how she’s strengthening brand awareness for “strategically midsize” law firm Strauss Troy, including by developing a new tagline, launching a video strategy and guiding a website redesign.
Here's a glimpse of what you'll learn
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How Jennifer Gault’s experience in the retail, nonprofit and construction sectors shapes her approach to legal marketing.
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Why midsize law firm Strauss Troy has focused its marketing strategy on brand awareness.
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Why powerful, human-led stories are essential no matter the industry, and how to make them work for law firms.
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Key considerations for redesigning a law firm’s website and branding.
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How to balance firmwide initiatives with individual attorneys’ community and pro bono interests.
About our featured guest
Jennifer Gault is the director of marketing at Strauss Troy, where she leads the development and execution of marketing strategies at one of the Midwest’s top midsize firms. With over 12 years of diverse marketing experience spanning retail, nonprofit, construction and legal industries, Jennifer brings a wealth of knowledge and versatility to her role.
With a strong background in content marketing, graphic design and social media management, she enjoys creating compelling and impactful content that showcases the firm's values, expertise and achievements. Jennifer is a passionate communicator and empathetic listener who believes in the power of people to communicate and influence.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by Reputation Ink.
Founded by Michelle Calcote King, Reputation Ink is a public relations and content marketing agency that serves professional services firms of all shapes and sizes across the United States, including corporate law firms and architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms.
Reputation Ink understands how sophisticated corporate buyers find and select professional services firms. For more than a decade, they have helped firms grow through thought leadership-fueled strategies, including public relations, content marketing, video marketing, social media, podcasting, marketing strategy services and more.
To learn more, visit www.rep-ink.com or email them at info@rep-ink.com today.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Jennifer Gault: we want to spotlight our people. We want to show you who our attorneys are and why they're great and why you should work with us. So kind of a spin on content creation. Instead of writing a thought leadership article on “Five things you should know if you're wanting to purchase a new business,” having our attorney actually sit down video-style and in 30 seconds or a minute–
[00:00:27] Michelle Calcote King: Nice.
[00:00:28] Jennifer: –just break it down for you really simple. Then if you want more information, you can go to the website to read a little bit more of a lengthy article.
[music]
[00:00:42] Announcer: Welcome to “Spill the Ink,” a podcast by Reputation Ink, where we feature experts in growth and brand visibility for law firms and architecture, engineering and construction firms. Now, let's get started with the show.
[00:00:59] Michelle: Hi, and welcome back. I'm Michelle Calcote King. I'm your host and I'm the principal and president of Reputation Ink. We are a public relations and content marketing agency for B2B professional services firms, including law firms. To learn more, go to rep-ink.com.
In today's episode, we're continuing our series of interviewing top marketing leaders of law firms. We're exploring their marketing strategies and approaches.
I'm excited today to welcome Jennifer Gault. She is Strauss Troy's Marketing Director. Strauss Troy is a full-service corporate law firm. Its attorneys have served clients in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky regions since 1953. Throughout 70 years of service, Strauss Troy has earned many fantastic distinctions from respected organizations like US News and World Report and Best Lawyers in America. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:57] Jennifer: Yes, thank you for having me. Happy to be here.
[00:02:00] Michelle: Yes, I'm excited to talk to you. You've got an interesting background. You've done some nonprofit, you've done construction. Tell me a little bit about your path and how you ended up in legal.
[00:02:12] Jennifer: In college, I was a mass communication major. I was really just interested in all things communication and marketing. Then out of college, I landed a job at an international market doing marketing, which was definitely different. Then all of these opportunities have kind of just found me, essentially. There was really no straight path from here to there or whatnot.
For my current position, I was actually referred by a colleague. After looking at the job description, it seemed a little intimidating, but after reading it and learning more about the firm, I decided to go for it. I'm really glad that I did because it was the reset and the creative outlet that I needed.
[00:03:00] Michelle: That's great. Yes, a lot of people don't think that legal marketing can be creative, but it absolutely can be. I'm biased, obviously, because I do it. But lawyers work on very substantive, impactful things that impact people in the community. We get to talk about it and write about it and create things about it. Absolutely.
I obviously looked at your website and you've got nine practice groups, 46 industries. Tell me about how your team collaborates with attorneys working across that many different practice groups and industries to bring together the firm's brand and strategy.
[00:03:55] Jennifer: We like to call ourselves strategically mid-sized. While our attorneys are individual leaders in their different practice areas, there often comes a time where we have to pull somebody in from a different practice area. To really cross-collaborate and just give the best possible experience to the client. We've really been trying to hone in on focusing on that when promoting the brand and different marketing efforts. It's very much like a team effort here. You get the Strauss Troy family, essentially, when you work with us. It's just great because we have a lot of different expertise that just finds its way in.
[00:04:43] Michelle: It feels like when I look at your website, you're a very local community-focused firm. Is that true? Is that a big part of your ethos of the firm is that it's your community local firm?
[00:05:07] Jennifer: Yes. We like to say we work where we live and we live where we work. Really giving back to the community with the work that we do. Then with the different outreach efforts that we have. We are a big sponsor of Fountain Square, which is the city center here in Cincinnati. We do Strauss Troy Market every Tuesday. It started out as a farmer's market 15 years ago when it started. Obviously it's evolved, but that was a brainchild of several of our attorneys and 3CBC, who's a client that we work with. We just really want to be where our people are that we live and work with in the community. I think we do a really good job of that.
[00:05:59] Michelle: That's great. How does your background in nonprofit, and I saw construction, how has that experience benefited you in legal marketing? What have you seen have been the differences or the similarities in those industries? How has that experience impacted you in this role?
[00:06:25] Jennifer: I've been lucky to dabble in a lot of different industries. I think there are a lot of skills that I have that I've learned over the years that are pretty translated across the board. I think at the end of the day, the concept of marketing is pretty much the same, whether you're selling shoes or legal services. For me, it's all about the experience for the potential clients and how you make them feel because how is your company different and how are you going to convey that in a successful way to land the business or keep the client?
[00:07:01] Michelle: Yes. It's all about focusing on the client, the end user of the product, which your product is your attorneys and the service you buy. If you keep that laser focus on the client, yes, it comes down to it. It is the same.
Tell me about your team. Are you a solo marketer or do you have a team? How are you structured?
[00:07:27] Jennifer: I am a solo marketer, yes. I've been lucky enough that there have been people that have worked here for a long time who've also done a little bit of marketing. They've been able to help me and give me some guidance. I do have some agencies that we use and work with for certain things. It's nice to kind of be able to touch base with them and bounce ideas off of them. Because this is my first time working in legal in general, so I joined the Legal Marketing Association and it's been great. I've realized that there are a lot of solo marketers out there.
[00:08:10] Michelle: A lot of them, yes.
[00:08:12] Jennifer: We've really been able to connect and I've actually made some really good friendships with people who are way across the country. Yes, I've learned to put my multitasking skills to great use, but it's been good.
[00:08:30] Michelle: Shout out to LMA. I'm heavily involved in LMA as well. The benefits of the Legal Marketing Association are huge.
I actually follow the special interest group for solo marketers. There's a lot of really great information sharing. What I find about LMA is that while technically everyone's a competitor, people are so friendly and willing to share best practices. They're not giving away proprietary information, but they're sharing knowledge and really willing to help others, which is incredibly valuable, especially if you're a solo marketer.
[00:09:17] Jennifer: Right, absolutely. It's like the other lifeline, essentially, because it's great to work with the attorneys and there are a lot of them that really get marketing. But when you actually are able to talk to people who speak your language, it's really refreshing.
[00:09:35] Michelle: A hundred percent.
Tell me about what's happening now. Tell me about the trends maybe that are impacting your work or maybe what are your priorities this year? What are you focused on?
[00:09:51] Jennifer: Trends, obviously AI is a big one. It's a little scary, but it's been able to help me streamline things a little bit as far as brainstorming goes and content creation, and just streamlining outlines and things like that. Video has been a big one. Trying to really incorporate that within our strategy.
[00:10:17] Michelle: Oh, cool.
[00:10:17] Jennifer: Then obviously social media engagement. The one thing that we've really been focusing on since the beginning of the year has been brand awareness. I know that seems like such a broad strategy or perspective, but it's the foundation for all of your marketing efforts.
[00:10:36] Michelle: Absolutely.
[00:10:37] Jennifer: Once I'd been there for a year, I was like, “Okay, I want to really sit down and figure out like, we're great and how can I convey that in a streamlined way that makes sense and is easy for people to digest.” We came up with a tagline that captured our mission and our values. "Your solutions start here" was born.
[00:11:04] Michelle: Love that.
[00:11:04] Jennifer: Like I mentioned, being that we're strategically midsize, we wanted to hone on the fact that you could use us for a number of your legal needs, and the “your solutions” part to that tagline is interchangeable. Big plans start here. What does that mean? Are you starting a new business? Talk to our corporate department, and lifelong partnerships start here. Are you a business looking for a partnership? We do a lot of work with accounting firms and we have great relationships with them.
Then new beginnings start here. Are you adopting? Here's our domestic relations department, or maybe it's just you want a new career, we can help you with that, and so on. It's things like that and all the other things that we do in between that help build the trust that is really needed in the legal industry and professional services industry in general. That's my outlook for the year, really trying to hone in on that and tell our story.
[00:12:10] Michelle: That's interesting. I love that you said, brand awareness is your focus because I think a lot of people don't separate out the different tactics. Am I focusing on lead generation? Am I focusing on brand awareness? What's my key priority here? Do I have a brand awareness challenge or do I have some other challenge in that kind of mix?
If people don't know who you are, it's going to affect everything. It's going to be really hard to build relationships. It's going to be really hard to have the business development meetings that you need to have, all of that without that foundational knowledge of the firm and what you do and how you do it.
Tell me about the video and what you're doing there.
[00:13:01] Jennifer: We are still in the strategy portion of that. An idea that I had was we want to spotlight our people. We want to show you who our attorneys are, and why they're great, and why you should work with us. A spin on content creation. Instead of writing a thought leadership article on “Five things you should know if you're wanting to purchase a new business,” having our attorney actually sit down, video-style, and in 30 seconds or a minute–
[00:13:37] Michelle: Nice.
[00:13:38] Jennifer: --just break it down for you really simple. Then if you want more information, you can go to the website to read a little bit of more lengthy article on that.
[00:13:49] Michelle: Love that. I love that because we're really trying to get clients to do that more. Do you have like a little video studio set up? Are you doing it on iPhone? How tech-advanced are you getting?
We do a lot of video and to be honest, we do some where we do the full like high end, get a big camera crew out. Then we do a lot of just iPhone, especially when it's just your thought leader-type video and iPhone is enough, with the right lighting and a good lapel mic.
How are you doing that with your attorneys?
[00:14:32] Jennifer: The idea was to do the iPhone, maybe get a tripod, start simple, work out the kinks. Then as we figure things out and get better, then think about maybe the bigger production.
[00:14:50] Michelle: Yes. That's smart. Yes, I like that. Iterate.
[00:14:54] Jennifer: iPhones can do so much these days. It's crazy.
[00:14:58] Michelle: They really can. I interviewed for television on an iPhone. The reporter actually came out with an iPhone. Yes, it's really wild. That's great.
I think that's really, really smart. It's hard to get a lot of attorneys to do that. Especially if you can show them how quick and easy it is, I think that's the buy-in that you can get. I know you said you're still in the strategy portion. Have the attorneys been receptive to the idea, or have you not gotten to that step yet?
[00:15:34] Jennifer: Yes. Obviously, there are a lot of people-- just people in general don't like their pictures taken or being on video, let alone. There are a few. Our marketing committee is really great, bouncing ideas off of them because it's my job to be the creative one. Then it's their job to analyze what I'm saying and maybe reel me in if it's too wild. We're still determining that. There are a few people that I think would be really great at it and probably would do it.
[00:16:12] Michelle: Yes, You have to find your coalition of the willing. I think if people aren't comfortable on video, don't force them because it's going to be obvious that they're not comfortable. Find the people that are and work with them.
Do you think you approach things differently than other legal marketers in any particular area? Do you think, "Oh, hey, I know I do this differently."
[00:16:44] Jennifer: Yes. I really try to focus on like the storytelling component, no matter what we do. Whether it's showing who our people are, and the right fit for potential clients or how the firm gives back to the community, our paralegals or assistants if they're involved in other organizations sitting on boards.
At the end of the day, I just want people to know, obviously, we're a law firm. Sometimes that can be an intimidating or a scary thing for people to grasp. I just want people to realize that we are people, too, and we care. Showing that more human side a–
[00:17:34] Michelle: Humanize.
[00:17:34] Jennifer: --lot of the time. We're still professionals and experts in what we do, but we also do all of these things, too. I think that really brings it in for people. We're marketing services and not a product, so it's harder because it's not something tangible. They can't see it or touch it or whatnot. It requires that extra level of awareness to build a trust and then demonstrate obviously the expertise too that we can help you with your legal needs that you have.
[00:18:10] Michelle: Yes. That's great. If you can be an effective storyteller, you've really done the hard part of marketing, I would say. That was my next question.
I think every marketer has their thing that they do really well, like their niche that they're great at. Do you think there's like one area that you would say, "This is what I particularly know that we do really well." Would you say it's storytelling? Is there an area that you say, "Okay, this is where we kind of-- we're great at this."
[00:18:51] Jennifer: Yes. I would say just the storytelling and then also how that translates into the content. Specifically the social media piece of it.
Just trying to put things out there that are compelling and interesting. It's the 80-20 rule that I think is still valid. 20% of the time, you want to put things out there to show people exactly what you do about your services. 80% of the time, you want, or should be talking about all of the other great things that you're doing as well.
That's what I try to try to focus on, and just bring that nice mix between, yes, we are the professionals and the experts in the practice areas and in the industry, but we can also be a little lighthearted and sharing different things.
For example, the chair of the marketing committee, he just played in a golf tournament last week and came in second place out of all of the golfers. I thought that was a really cool thing to share because maybe a lot of people wouldn't know that he was a golfer.
[00:20:06] Michelle: Yes, absolutely. One of the presentations I went to at the National LMA Conference recently was on bios and the presenters had done this deep dive about-- had looked at where clients looked the most at the lawyers' bios and it often was the personal info. I don't know how they were able to track that, maybe like eye tracking or something. They took that information and showed the lawyers, "Look, people are really interested in your personal life."
I think for older lawyers, "People are interested in what you do outside of the office," and I think for older lawyers they're shocked. I think that is a generational thing. The firm that was presenting was able to take that back and go, "They want to know who you are outside of the office." They want those stories. They use that to get them to share a little bit about their personal lives.
I thought that was pretty interesting. We use that to go to our clients and go-- because there are the older attorneys that are like, "Why would I ever tell anyone that and share that." Social media is a great place to do that, to give that little bit of a slice of who these people are. Not just suits and ties.
[00:21:28] Jennifer: Yes. We are actually in the process of redesigning our website. I'm really excited for it to be done, which hopefully it'll be soon. That's one thing that we're also looking at is those pages because from our SEO reports that we've been getting from our agency, one of our most visited pages is our different attorneys' pages. I think that stands true for probably all law firms. People want to know who you are when they are looking for potential lawyers to hire. That just makes sense to maybe include that information.
[00:22:07] Michelle: A website project, that's huge. Do you have a go-live target date?
[00:22:16] Jennifer: I would have loved for it to have been done already. I actually had never really been through a web redesign process, so I knew that it would take a little longer, but that's okay. We didn't really have a–-
[00:22:29] Michelle: They're always huge.
[00:22:29] Jennifer: –specific card deadline. Yes. It's definitely going to be a nice, refreshing feel based off of that "your solutions start here" tagline. From our website now, which is more corporate and traditional looking to something that's more innovative and new or human, I guess you could say.
[00:22:57] Michelle: No, I hear you on. My own agency's website is 10 years old. We've been meeting to--
[00:23:03] Jennifer: Ours probably that old too.
[00:23:05] Michelle: Yes. They say that really you should update every-- I hear every four to five years Is how quickly web technology gets out of date. They're just huge, huge projects and they always take longer than you think they're going to take. Kudos to you for getting through that.
[00:23:28] Jennifer: Yes. I was really happy that the board and everyone approved it being that I had only been here for less than a year when I had proposed that we should do it.
[00:23:39] Michelle: Good for you.
[00:23:40] Jennifer: I think that just speaks to the fact that they really are trusting me with guiding us in the right direction, which I really appreciate that.
[00:23:54] Michelle: Yes. That's huge. Really huge.
Let's talk about the community engagement. You told me about the Market on the Square and the-- you obviously have firmwide initiatives. How do you balance the firmwide initiative and then also the attorney initiatives? Because I actually saw on the page, which I thought was cool, you had the firmwide stuff and then you have like individual attorney stuff. Which I thought was a good way of balancing that. I often hear marketers talk about like, “Every attorney's got their like pet thing.” I thought that was pretty cool. Tell me a little bit about that.
[00:24:41] Jennifer: Yes. There is a committee here at Strauss Troy called the Make-A-Difference (MAD) team. Gosh, they've been, I think doing this for 25 years. I don't exactly know the whole story behind it, but obviously people were passionate and wanted to get together and it's made up of attorneys and legal assistants and staff people. I think that everyone just puts their ideas together and we see what fits and what makes sense for the time that things are happening and go forward with that.
I sit in on the MAD committee. I bring the marketing perspective that they need help with when it comes to promoting everything or working with the different organizations. That's how the firmwide things work.
Then the individual, I try to keep a very straight line spreadsheet because there are so many attorneys that do so many different things. Some want more exposure for things and some don't. I just try to balance and just make sure that line of communication is open so that I always know what's going on. If I see or hear something on social media, I'm not thinking like, "Oh, I didn't know we were doing this. I wish I would have." It's just the balance of everything and just making sure we're all communicating with each other.
[00:26:25] Michelle: No, that's great. Do you feel like the Market on the Square and that MAD team has made a real impact not just on the community, but on the firm and its business development. Do you see a direct link to that?
[00:26:50] Jennifer: Yes, I think we do. It's allowed us to engage with current clients or potential clients on a personal level, which has turned into referral sources or maybe just listening to feedback and understanding needs. I always think it's cool when people come in and they're like, "Oh yes, I saw your blue umbrellas on the square," because as part of our partnership and sponsorship we have probably 20 umbrellas because there's tables set up around the Square. They have lunch, food trucks that come every day of the week or you can just grab something from a local business that's there on the square. Everyone always knows our bright blue umbrellas and–
[00:27:35] Michelle: Oh, cool.
[00:27:35] Jennifer: –I just love that and I think it's so funny.
[00:27:37] Michelle: Yes. I've done things and it's always interesting the things that stick in people's heads. There's things that sometimes you wouldn't realize are they going to be the things that people notice. That's cool. I love that.
[00:27:50] Jennifer: I love that too because Fountain Square is the city center and they do different events every night of the week. There's salsa dancing, I think on Thursdays, and then they have jazz or trivia. In all of the photos they post, it's always the Strauss Troy blue umbrellas in the background and I just love that.
[00:28:14] Michelle: Perfect.
[00:28:15] Jennifer: Obviously as a marketer, you're like, "We love that."
[00:28:18] Michelle: Yes. Whose focused on brand awareness. Yes, one hundred percent. Love that.
The last thing I want to ask about is social media. I see you do a lot of legal updates on there, and of course, you're cross-posting to your news page. Tell me about making sure your target audience gets the most value from those. Tell me about your process with that.
[00:28:43] Jennifer: Yes. Obviously, being that we have so many different practice areas, we have different target audiences, which makes it a little more challenging. When posting on social media, literally everyone has social media, so I think we do a good job of reaching everyone. I think, like I mentioned earlier, just making sure things are concise and streamlined and just bits of information that are easily able to be digested by people; that aren't too filled with legal jargon that they might not understand.
When I work with attorneys, I try to help them keep that in mind, too, that they're writing to people who might not necessarily be well-versed in the whole legal industry or process. That's how we figure out how to target the correct people. Then as far as the posting on social media goes, just taking advantage of insights from analytics to be posting at the right times, which is really helpful instead of just a shot in the dark. Looking back at past posts and seeing what posts have gotten the most engagement and trying to just stay in line with doing that.
[00:30:08] Michelle: I always find it's not even just that you're reaching people that aren't lawyers, but even lawyers don't want to read legalese. It's like we're all just so busy and we're moving so fast. Even for lawyers, it's difficult to read legalese. They forget. I think they've done studies of judges that will pick the plain language written version every time because we all want to read something that's simple and easy and quick to understand. I often say that to clients.
I always like to ask if there's one final thought you'd like to leave listeners with that you can take from your career.
[00:31:01] Jennifer: That's a good one.
[00:31:02] Michelle: I know, it's always a big one.
[00:31:09] Jennifer: I guess I would say don't underestimate yourself.
[00:31:12] Michelle: Good one.
[00:31:14] Jennifer: Because like I said, I've been in different industries and if you just focus on the things that you do well, I think it pretty much translates across any industry or any job. When I was reading about the job description, when I was thinking about applying for this position, I was a little overwhelmed. Just be confident and don't underestimate yourself and just jump in and I think everything will be fine.
[00:31:48] Michelle: Oh, I love that. Yes, so true. Honestly, everyone can use that advice. That's a great point to leave us with.
We have been talking to Jennifer Gault of Strauss Troy. If people wanted to get in touch and talk to you more, what would be the best way for them to connect?
[00:32:04] Jennifer: Definitely connect with me on LinkedIn or you can send me an email as well.
[00:32:09] Michelle: Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
[00:32:12] Jennifer: Yes, thank you. It's been great. I really appreciate it.
[00:32:18] Announcer: Thanks for listening to “Spill the Ink,” a podcast by Reputation Inc. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
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