Marketing a family law practice

Last week I presented a session on marketing family law practices at CLT’s annual conference on “Management challenges facing family law practitioners”. At the session I promised the delegates two things – first, a simple introduction to Twitter (please see the earlier blog posts) and second, a commentary on some of the issues raised in my presentation.

The need for analysis and a strategic plan

Earlier in the day, the marvellous Robert Mowbray of MacIntyre Hudson had pressed home the message about the need for a plan – so I didn’t spend long on the need for a strategic approach to marketing. However, delegates found the outline marketing plan and the simple process as follows helpful:

Where are we now? I stressed the need for a detailed review of information from within your own firm and team. This audit might include information about past work, past sources and referrers of work, the profitability and desirability of the work, the nature of the clients and the range of skills and services provided by your people. And should, of course, extend to factors beyond your firm – developments in the legal environment, amongst new and emerging competitors, with the march of technological development and sociological changes. This is your baseline and also your source of ideas about opportunities and threats.

Where do we want to be? With a good audit you should have sufficient information to be able to set SMART objectives so that the partners’ expectations of what they want to achieve are managed and so it is easier to select those marketing programmes which will deliver those results most effectively. You need objectives to measure your progress and return on investment in marketing programmes.

How will we get there? There are some headline strategic decisions to make – will you generate the work yourself or rely on a third party or a strategic alliance – or even outsource lead generation entirely? Will you attempt to market to consumers (a B2C approach) or through other intermediaries in the market (a B2B approach)? Are you targeting a special slice or segment of the market and positioning yourself appropriately? And what are the main elements of each part of the marketing mix – the marketplace, the product or service being promoted, the pricing and payment as well as the promotional strategy. At the conference we talked about how you might go about identifying your (unique) competitive advantage.

Traditional methods of marketing

Then I spent some time looking at traditional models of marketing – that continue to serve some firms (even very large ones) extremely well. I categorise the different methods as follows:

Reputation – Links with professional bodies, directory listings, media relations profile etc. We looked at some examples here – notably the recent research by Mishcon de Raya into continuing contact with fathers post divorce to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Children’s Act

Real information and value – Good content on web sites and in newsletters, thought leadership research, seminars and briefings that go beyond the narrow confines of the legal issues

Relationships – Whether this is internally focused cross-selling strategies, a focus on existing clients and referrers, embedding within the local or specialist communities or lavish entertaining and hospitality approaches.

Changing families and changing needs

I presented an array of statistics and trends to show how dynamic the family market has become. For example:

Statistics
* 270,000 weddings in the UK in 2007 (-2.7%)
* 88,000 remarriages
* 144,000 divorces (-2.6%)
* 18,000 civil partnerships
* Population growth – 791,000 births
* 24% births to mothers born outside UK
* 46% children born out of wedlock
* 12% households with lone parent

* 210,000 lone fathers raising kids in the UK

* 1+ in 10 children in a stepfamily
* Secularisation – 31% attend religious services

Trends
* Better education and later marriage
* Connected anonymity and social disconnection”
* Religious demands (e.g. polygamy, Sharia law)
* Cohabitation
* Female financial independence/Lone parenting
* Obesity and early mortality
* Negative equity
* Grandparents rights to contact
* Divorce parties/cakes
* Father gets residence as mother denies contact

I also looked at the host of other professionals who are edging into the divorce market who may try to challenge the trusted adviser relationship of lawyers:

McKenzie friends for litigants in person
www.mckenziefriend.net

Divorce avoidance training
www.divorcebusting.com (USA)

Divorce coaches and break up angels
www.thedivorcecoach.co.uk

Conflict resolution/managers
www.soniabrillconsulting.com (USA)

Psychologists
www.familytherapy.org.uk
www.parental-alienation.info

Accountants
www.divorcedirection.com (USA)
Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (IDFA)

NHS/Doctors

Commoditisation, innovation and new services

This topic I covered at another recent legal conference and the blog post can be found in October so I won’t repeat it here.

Impact of digital marketing and social media

I started with Susskind’s quote from “The end of lawyers?” - ‘Yesterday’s chargeable information services, formerly packaged as advice, are today’s online marketing materials’ and did a quick review of the growth of selected social networks.

Myspace average age 26, 107m users globally
Twitter, average age 31, 6m users UK, 58m globally
Facebook, average age 33, 22m users UK, 411m globally
LinkedIn, average age 39, 2m UK users, 45m globally (of which 1m are lawyers!)

I spent some time looking at the free and paid methods of driving traffic to your web site, getting reviews (both Google.com/local and yelp.co.uk) and the importance of good content, blogs, on-line services and real time conversations. Strategies for Facebook, LinkedIn (including discussions and polls) and wikis as well as Twitter were discussed (see the blog posts below for more detail).

Other approaches

Towards the end I described some other marketing approaches in use by family lawyers including:

Starting Over Show (London/Brighton 7 March 2010) - Free surgeries - Bennett Griffin/Mayo Wynne Baxter

Youtube - KentTV.Com Philip Dimond/Guillards “How to get a divorce”

www.myvouchers.co.uk - 20% off divorce products www.divorce-online.co.uk

Podcasts - Rebecca Probert - Podcasts.sweetandmaxwell.co.uk

Contributed/syndicated articles - www.trcb.com Barrister Bard www.davidosborne.com

Affiliate partnership - Flint Bishop – organisations with 5,000 employees, branded web site for company
Referral fee or discount

And finally had a look at some of the legal and divorce apps (applications) becoming available on smartphones such as iPhones.

Let me know if you would like a copy of the slides from the presentation (kim@kimtasso.com)

Part Two – How? Introducing Twitter to lawyers, accountants and surveyors

In my previous blog post I provided some of the reasons WHY even small firms of lawyers, accountants and surveyors should consider using Twitter. In this post I aim to provide a simple “getting started” guide.

Create an account

The first thing is to go to the Twitter site www.twitter.com and watch the quick video explaining what it is and how it works. It is really simple. Then set yourself up with a personal account – it is free. If it makes you feel more comfortable then use a non-work email address and an account name that does not associate with your professional name – that way you can experiment without risking your firm’s reputation. It will be helpful to provide some information in your profile to help others decide if they want to follow you - your location and your interests. A photo or image is also a good idea. But these things can be done later if you prefer.

Monitor

Some people do a search each day to check what is being said about themselves or their firms. This reputation management task might be something that you allocate to someone else in the firm to do.

You will probably also want to regularly check who is following you – although you should receive an email alert each time someone starts to follow you - and perhaps block any inappropriate people. It is likely that you will want to follow many of the people who are following you too. If you find that someone you follow is generating too much material or the wrong sort of tweets then you may want to stop following them (at present Twitter doesn’t alert people when someone stops following them).

Find people to follow

Now you need to find some people to Follow. If you Follow someone it means that all their tweets (the 140 character messages) appear in your news feed on your Twitter home page. You can find suitable people to follow in a number of ways. Use the Find People search facility to type in their name or their organisation’s name (but preferably their Twitter account name) or use the main Search facility to type in useful words such as ‘law’ or ‘property’ then click on any names to check out their profile and add them to your follow list.

Using lists

If you don’t want to search for and/or type in a long list of people to follow then you can decide – as an alternative – to follow someone else’s list. To make things easier for the professions in the UK I have set up a number of lists to get you going. So visit my Twitter account – RedStarKim and select one of the following lists to have a look:

@redstarkim/lawyers
@redstarkim/accountants
@redstarkim/property-and-surveyors
@redstarkim/family-and-divorce-law
@redstarkim/women-in-business
@redstarkim/London

As you become familiar with various Twitterers you may decide to follow them in their own right or even create your own lists. Some professional clients create lists based on their clients so that it is easier to keep track of what is happening amongst particular groups of clients. This approach can support your market segmentation strategy.

What’s the # (hashtag) all about?

This is a facility to help you search more easily and is used to keeo track of emerging trends in Twitter news. For example, many people use #uklaw on their tweets so you might find it useful to use this in your searches and tweets if you are a UK lawyer. There are a few famous hashtag uses – for example, #followfriday or #ffuk is where each Friday Twitterers nominate people that they think others would like to follow.

Saving important tweets

As there are so many tweets being issued each minute you may wish to bookmark or save important tweets for later consideration or to look at the links when you have a Wifi connection. In this case you favourite the tweet and it will remain in a separate list for you.

Producing your own tweets

You can use the settings so that only people you approve can see your tweets. But this is not used very often.

The simplest tweet is a simple text message of no more than 140 characters. There are options to also attach photos or videos. There are Twitter facilities that automatically help here – for example, for managing photos to which people can post comments.

You can also include links to your web site or blog. Simply cut and paste the link or use one of the Twitter options. There are facilities to help shortern very long link addresses.

Retweeting

If you see a tweet by someone else that you think your followers would find of interest you can retweet it – a bit like forwarding an email. Either type in RT and the name of the account (eg @redstarkim) and then the message you wish to retweet. There are automatic retweets options now although these do not allow you to add your own comments.

Please remember that because there are so many tweets being issued all the time, if you have a particularly good or important tweet then you might wish to repeat it a couple of times – at different times of the day to catch different time zones or users.

It is good form to thank those who retweet your tweets. Usually with an RT rather than an @ reply.

More sophisticated users will know that you can use software to automatically generate tweets when web site content or blogs are updated.

Interacting with other Tweeters

If you retweet a message then others will see this as a mention. If your message is retweeted then you effectively receive a mention. If you use the reply option in Twitter please be aware that everyone who follows you will see your reply. If you wish to send a message that only the other Twitterer will see then use the DM option.

If you are the only one using a Twitter account then you will see your DMs and be able to respond appropriately. However, if you set up a Twitter account for your firm that others might also use then ensure the email address is available for others to use and that someone is assigned to regularly checking DM messages.

Using Twitter on the move

If you have an iPhone or other smartfone you can obtain a (usually free) app to use Twitter when you are on the move. I’m using TweetDeck but likely to change soon (any recommendations?). This means that those odd moments when you are waiting for a phone call or a train (providing there is WiFi access) can be used to check Twitter posts and post your own comments.

Other applications

Twitter is developing very fast and it is hard to stay on top of all the developments. And many of those new developments may not really apply to a new user. However, some of the applications that I have found helpful when you are getting started are as follows:

http://twitr.org - This is a directory where you list your Twitter account and nominate three categories against which it should be listed

www.twitteranalyzer.com – This tool helps you to analyse the nature of a Twitter account – how many people follow it, the type of material covered in tweets and so on. You might want to analyse your own account once you have been using Twitter for a while.

www.localtweep.com – Another directory, but this time focusing on your postcode to enable you to be easily found and to find other Twitterers in your local area.

Warning

There are occasional problems on Twitter – like when you receive spam or your account is hacked. You need to be alert to any strange tweets. You can block people who send offensive material. And if you receive a Tweet which asks you to sign in again to Twitter be careful as it may be phishing for your account details.

Please let me know if you find this guide helpful – and if there are any other “basics” that you would find useful as you gain familiarity with Twitter. I am also compiling information on the successful use of Twitter by professional partnerships so let me know how you get on.

Part one – Why? Twitter for lawyers, accountants and surveyors

Web 2.0. Social networks. Social marketing. There’s lots of jargon – and hype – about it all. Most senior professionals will associate things such as Myspace and Facebook with their teenage kids and dismiss them from consideration as serious business tools.

But some professional practices have really got their head around Twitter – the micoblogging site which is often mentioned in the media in connection with a host of celebrities (most famously Stephen Fry) whilst many remain sceptical. Although I am by no means an expert, I thought I’d try to explain some of the business benefits for partnerships getting involved in Twitter. In a subsequent post, I’ll attempt to provide a simple “getting started” guide so you can dip your toe in the water.

Whilst networks such as Facebook have enormous user bases (around 411m globally and 33m in the UK) you may be surprised that the average age of the users is 33 years. Most professionals are more familiar with LinkedIn – the leading professional network – with 2m users in the UK and a mature average age of 39! Interestingly, of the 45m global users of LinkedIn over 1m are lawyers! Twitter – with 58m users globally and 6m in the UK – is one of the fastest growing social networks and has an average age of 31.

Anyway. Why use Twitter for business? Here are 10 reasons you should explore the possibility:

1. It’s free – Unlike many marketing and PR tools, using Twitter is free. However, you do need to invest some time in learning a little about it and once you are up and running someone (or perhaps you could set up a rota) needs to set aside a little time on a regular basis to providing regular tweets (the 140 character messages). Some firms manage with just one or two tweets a week whilst others are more ambitious and have many going out on a daily basis. It doesn’t have to be a partner though – a keen assistant can easily manage a modest Twitter account on behalf of a department or a small firm. And for more sophisticated users, you can even have automatic tweets generated when, for example, you update your web site or blog.

2. Raise your profile – By issuing regular tweets on your particular subjects you will become known as an expert. So your opinions and expertise is shared with a much wider audience and on a more regular basis than might be possible using other PR or marketing methods. Furthermore, Twitter is immediate. Yesterday’s tweets are old news – so you don’t need to spend hours fretting over what to say and how.

3. Communicate with clients – Knowing that many firms still struggle with developing a good database with the names and email addresses of their clients – and then even if they do manage that, find it almost impossible to produce regular newsletters or one-off alerts on topical issues to send to them, Twitter is a good alternative. You can quickly identify your client Twitter accounts and link to them (this is called Following them and the system regards them as your “friends”) which usually results in them following you in return (they then become your followers). You can be sure that your competitors are “following” your most well known clients – so Twitter could even be seen as a defensive move!

4. Communicate with referrers – Like your clients, referrers need to be reminded of your firm and its expertise and services and Twitter is an efficient method of keeping in touch with a lot of these people with very little cost and effort. Like on your web site, quality information (content) on your tweets can position you as an expert and the first port of call on particular subjects.

5. Reach new clients – Once you start tweeting quality information, you will find that a variety of potential new clients start to follow you. In time they may even start communicating with you direct through the various reply and direct message facilities. More likely, they may use the links that you provide in your tweets to visit your web site to learn more about your firm and its services.

6. Increase your web traffic – One of the most valuable things that Twitter does is to increase traffic to your firm’s web site and to any blogs that you might produce. You do this by including a link to the relevant section of your web site or blog in the tweet. More recent developments have been Google Real Time Search (which competes with Bing) which means people searching Google also see the latest material generated by networks such as Twitter.

7. Keep up with the news – There are many, many people using Twitter in the legal, accounting and property markets – and more specialist areas such as particular aspects of law or finance - and Twitter provides you with a simple way to keep your eye on the multitude of ideas and developments that are swirling around your market. The retweet facilitity in Twitter enables you to recirculate information that you think might be of interest to your followers and saves you the effort of producing all the content yourself. Retweeting other people’s material may also initiate a dialogue with those people.

8. Monitor your competitors – As long as they have public tweets and do not block you, it is also possible for you to follow your competitors to see what they are tweeting about. This helps you keep at the leading edge of developments in your sector. But remember that if you follow your competitors, they are likely to follow you!

9. Keep up with your clients – Some of your clients are likely to be using Twitter. By following them you can keep up with developments at their organisation and perhaps gain more insight into what they are doing in the market. Sometimes their tweets may trigger thoughts and ideas that you can provide to them – adding value to the relationship from their perspective and showing them that you are keen to provide real help.

10. Give some personality to your brand – Too often a firm’s web site and other marketing communications can come across as stilted and stuffy – and sometimes even long winded. Regular short tweets can be less formal, certainly more concise and you can even provide a glimmer of the personality of your firm and your people through Twitter. It adds a human dimension which is so very important for the relationships of a professional firm.