Dynamic Copywriting

I found a very interesting article on Findlaw.com that was posted for lawyers wishing to market their law practices. However, since the article is actually a list of over 100 marketing ideas that were originally posted by the Small Business Administration, I think all business people will find it helpful.

The article can be found at 100+ Marketing Ideas.

Some of the ideas you may find helpful are:

• Get a marketing intern to take you on as a client; it will give the intern experience and you some free marketing help.
  
• Produce separate business cards/sales literature for each of your target market segments (e.g. government and commercial and/or business and consumer).
  
• Photocopy interesting articles and send them to clients and prospects with a hand-written FYI note and your business card.
  
• Join a list-serve (online group) related to your profession. You can find hundreds of such groups on Google groups or Yahoo groups.
  
• Never let a day go past without engaging in at least one marketing activity.
  
• Publish a newsletter for your prospects and customers (the article doesn’t specify, but I would recommend an email newsletter which is free to send out).
  
• Test a new mailing list. If it produces results, add it to your current direct mail lists or consider replacing a list that's not performing up to expectations.
  
• Rather than sending direct mail in plain white envelopes, use colored or oversized envelopes to pique recipients' curiosity.

COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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One of the things I want to do this year is to pass along some of the most outstanding marketing ideas I am able to find.  One very important idea is to use blogging as a marketing tool. 

Case in point:  Back in December 2006 I wrote about Grant Griffiths, a Kansas Family Lawyer, who had stopped all of his traditional advertising because his marketing efforts using his blog was bringing in all the business he needed.

I was thinking about Mr. Griffiths because I was explaining to an other professional why blogging was such a great way to market just about any business. So today I  did a number of Google searches to see where his blog is ranked by the world’s most popular search engine. Here are the results:

Grant Griffiths dominates almost every keyword or search term I could think of related to "Kansas Family Law." The only term I looked up that listed his blog on the second page was “Kansas Child Visitation.”

All the other searches I did had him on Google’s first page. The results listed below are all for Google’s non-paid listings. (In other words, the paid ads Google sells may be higher, but Mr. Griffiths’ blog outranks all the others on the "organic," or earned, search results.)

• Kansas Family Law, #2 on page one
  
• Kansas Family Lawyer, #1 on  on page onepage one
  
• Kansas Family Attorney, #1 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Law, #6 on page one
  
• Kansas Child Custody Law, #1 on page one
  
• Kansas Child Custody Lawyer, #2 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Lawyer, #2 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Attorney, #2 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Mediation, #4 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Mediator, #6 on page one
  
• Kansas Fathers Rights, #1 on page one
  
• Kansas Dads rights, #5 on page one

Think about it. Almost anyone who searches for information about Kansas family law or Kansas family lawyers is going to find Mr. Griffiths’ site. And when they get to this site, they will find a wealth of information on the topic.

Do you think he has to convince people that he knows what he is talking about when they have read a site like his? Do you think he gets to be choosy about which clients he wants to work with? (or do you think he has to settle for the lowest paying, most disagreeable clients because he is desperate for business?)  

And my personal favorite, how many clients do you think try to "negotiate" his fee down to rock bottom?

Now also take a look at the length or complexity of his articles. For the most part they are surprisingly short or easy to write.

Some are fairly long, but there is a fair amount of short articles in there as well. Many of his articles simply cite and comment on information he gleans from other sources. Some of his articles are list articles (such as ten ways to cooperatively seek the best interests of your child).

What I am getting at here is that Mr.Griffiths has achieved marketing success with blogging by simply communicating information to his readers on their level. He updates his blog regularly and he uses important keywords that he knows will correspond to the search queries his prospective clients will use when they go into Google.

And he did all this in a relatively short period of time. I wrote my original article in Deccember 2006 and he started his blog sometime in 2005 (I'm not sure exactly when in 2005). That means he started dominating the Google rankings in at least 24 months.

Something else. Griffiths has aparently taken a sabatical because his blog has not been updated since late 2007. Nevertheless, that blog still dominates all those keywords even without additional writing on his part.

How can you or your firm imitate what he is doing? Simply create a blog and update it regularly. Use the keywords the customers you are targeting will also use when they use search engines in both the titles of your articles and repeated in the bodies of the articles themselves.

Within a few months, you should see your site climbing the search engine ranks for the keywords you are focusing on.

COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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Larry Bodine, who writes the Law Marketing Blog wrote an interesting piece this week called, Evidence That Yellow Pages Are Trash.

As you probably know, lawyers and law firms are among the most prolific Yellow Page advertisers. Larry mentions that in his local pages, lawyer ads run from page 497 to 538, with little to distinguish themselves other than pictures of gavels and scales of justice.

Sigh. This means I am going to have to get on my lawyer-marketing soapbox again.

As many of you know, I used to be a lawyer and one of my peeves is how poorly lawyers and other professionals market their services.

Frankly I believe this is one of the reasons practicing law is such a high-pressure profession. Poor marketing leads to taking on bad clients with bad cases who leave swaths of stress and frustration in their wake. Many of the cases and clients in a lot of lawyers' files are there simply because they couldn't afford to be selective.

Good marketing enables all professionals to be selective and lets them work with the people they really want to work with.

Back to Larry's article. Larry looked out his window one morning and saw what appeared to be a bag of trash laying in his front yard. When he went out to throw it away, he found it was the local Yellow Pages. His point is that the lawyers who bought expensive ads probably would not have preferred to have it presented as trash in someone's front yard.

I will grant Larry's point that Yellow Pages could be presented much better, but my mind took what he said and went off on its own direction. I believe Yellow Page advertising could be productive for professionals if they were handled better.

Instead of cookie-cutter ads with gavels, scales of justice or pictures of stern looking lawyers, why not use these ads to offer free information kits on different areas of the law?

For example, if I were looking for a lawyer to handle my medical malpractice case, do you think I would be attracted to an ad that listed medical malpractice within a laundry list of other specialties? Or do you think I would gravitate to an ad that offered a free booklet or case study on medical malpractice?

This is the difference between one-step vs. two-step advertising strategies.

Decades of direct response advertising and generations of copywriters have proven that two-step advertising, in which a person merely has to request free information, almost always gets a higher response.

Alternatively, a one-step ad which requires that the person must call a phone number to schedule an appointment, requires much more of a commitment on the person's part, and therefore gets a much lower response.

Two-step advertising requires less of an initial commitment on the part of the potential client, but gives the firm the opportunity to build a list of prospective clients and follow up with these people with subsequent mailings or emails.

These days, the term, Permission Marketing is used interchangeably with "two-step advertising." The ad's sole purpose under this strategy is to gather a list of prospects and follow up with them by offering valuable, free information. Repeated contact with potential clients who have opted onto a list invariably converts more of them into actual clients.

What kind of information can be offered both as the initial inducement to opt in or as follow up material? Problem-solving information pieces like white papers, list articles, FAQs, or case studies all make excellent free info products.

The added benefit with these materials is that they all position the lawyer or other professional as an expert in that area of their practice. They go from someone who just mentioned "medical malpractice" as one of several areas within a laundry list, to someone who is knowledgeable enough to have written material about it.

So, Larry Bodine's point is very well taken that Yellow Page ads may lack a lot in their presentation, but I would urge professionals who do Yellow Page advertising to simply write ads that are intended to build lists of prospective clients.


COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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Every marketing book on the planet (practically) waxes on and on about the importance of creating a "Unique Selling Proposition" or USP in order to effectively sell a product or service. Yet understanding what a USP really is, is still one of the most misunderstood concepts in business.

I've seen fuzzy slogans, unsupported claims, and vague sound bites all passed off as USPs. There is a law firm here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that says they are the firm to go to when "results really matter." ???? Can anyone please tell me what that means? Who hires an expensive law firm when the results don't matter? Ok, I'd better get off my "lawyers can't market" soapbox right now because I have other things to say here.

There's a story about Claude Hopkins, the brilliant 1920s ad man who was asked to help a little-known, bottom-tier beer company named Schlitz boost their sales. This was before Schlitz became known as "The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous." In fact, it was before Schlitz was even famous within the city of Milwaukee itself.

The first thing he did was request a tour of Schlitz' brewery. While on the tour, Hopkins was surprised to notice that despite being located just a few hundred waters from Lake Michigan, Schlitz used only water from deep artesian wells to make its beer.

He also noticed that Schlitz' brewers repeatedly tested their yeast recipes, going through hundreds of trials in order to come up with the perfect formula.

He also noticed that they washed their beer bottles several times before filling them with beer.

When the tour was over, Hopkins asked the Schlitz executives why they weren't letting the public know about these painstaking processes. They responded that all breweries did pretty much the same things and that their processes were not really all that unique.

But, noted Hopkins, not one other brewer was talking about them. So he created a campaign to educate the public about the artesian water (even though an abundant and cheaper supply of water was only a few hundred yards away in Lake Michigan), the hundreds of trials in order to create the perfect yeast recipes, and the repeated re-washing of beer bottles prior to their use.

As a result, Schlitz came to "own" these painstaking processes in the minds of the public, even though other breweries did the same things.

A USP only has to be unique in the minds of the public to give your company a vastly superior selling advantage in the marketplace.

Think about your own processes. What are your own quality control standards? How do you produce a quality product? What do you do to deliver a quality service? How do you train your employees? How do you initiate, and then use, feedback and survey results from your customers?

Personally, I find those car commercials that have engineers in white lab coats testing their cars with crash dummies or explaining the engineering processes (even though they are still over my head) over commercials that just shout to me about price and this-week-only sales.

Let's go back to the law firm I mentioned earlier. What if they educated the public about how they only hire law school graduates who were in the top of their classes, how their education continues once they come to work for this firm, how each newly hired lawyer is assigned a mentor, and how all the lawyers at that firm must take hours of continuing legal education.

The truth is, none of these things are unique to major law firms, but like Schlitz beer (oh I bet these lawyers would love to hear me compare their firms with a beer company), none of their competitors are educating the public about these things.

The reason a USP is so vital, is because it is a positioning device to create a unique spot of "real estate" in the mind of the marketplace. When Dominos Pizza began using the USP of guaranteed 30 minute delivery or less, they were not the only pizza chain that had fast delivery.

But they were the first to make fast, guaranteed delivery their claim to fame. And as a result, they came to "own" the idea of fast getting a pizza delivered quickly in the minds of the public.

What is your USP? What idea can you "own" in the minds of your public?

The success of failure of your marketing efforts depends on answering these questions. Don't pass them off with vague sound bites or unfounded, unsupported claims. The public won't buy these things and they will not make you unique in anyone's mind.


COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

A lot of businesses have noticed their competitors posting white papers on their websites and have become aware of the tremendous increase in the number of them being written and circulated on the internet. So it's only natural that they ask, "What products or services could be marketed better with white papers?"

According to Perry Marshall, a well-known writer who specializes in white papers, almost all papers are written for the b2b (business to business) market. Few, if any, are for the business-to-consumer market.

Marshall goes on to say that there are three types of situations when a white paper is called for:

1. When your company is introducing a new product or service. This is especially true when what you offer is intended to solve a problem the customer may not fully understand or appreciate.
   
   
2. When your company sells a product or service that is complex and requires a white paper to explain in simple terms what you do. Often your buyer will have to explain your product or service to others within her organization and your white paper will aid in that communication.
   
   
3. When your company sells an expensive product or service. When a major expenditure is involved, someone's job may be at stake if the money is not spent wisely. A white paper is a vital part of the due diligence process for that person or team. Just having your paper in their file demonstrates that they sought out information before making the purchase.

All this means that a white paper must have an air of objectivity to it. Unfortunately, to many people the term "white paper" has become synonymous with "thinly disguised sales pitch."

Yes a white paper must transition into a persuasive document and end with a call for action, but it must first establish itself as a document that can be trusted to present the facts without an undue slant.

White Papers are Problem-Solving Documents

One way to approach this is to begin with a problem that must be solved. Studies have shown that we are much more motivated by the fear of loss or avoidance of pain, than we are by the promise of gain. So spending time focusing on a problem, why some solutions will not work or are extremely costly, is time well spent.

And, if written without hyperbole, it does not disrupt the sense of objectivity you want to project.

Admit Flaws and Limitations

A second way to establish credibility and objectivity is to admit some shortcomings with your product or service. Clearly you want to use this method sparingly, but the key is to not try to present what you sell as the best thing since white bread, because it is not. Instead use its flaws and limitations to position it in the market place.

I remember going on a family vacation to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina when I was 10 yeas old. My parents had driven all day and were tired (my brothers and I just wanted out of the car to go swimming).

But when we got to the beach, all the name-brand hotels had their "No Vacancy" signs out. So we drove to the second street from the beach and my parents found a humble little place with a sign out front that said, "Not Fancy – But Clean."

That was all my exhausted parents wanted. They felt that even if we only stayed one night and changed hotels, it would be worth it to find a place to stay for now.

And sure enough, the hotel lived up to its claim and was clean, comfortable and very pleasant. We stayed all week and never changed to a different hotel.

And I learned a valuable copywriting lesson about positioning what you sell by admitting what it isn't.

Praise a Competitor

A third way to build credibility and demonstrate your objectivity is to say positive things about your competition. Again, you don't want to go overboard doing this, but think of using this idea hand in hand with the previous point of admitting your product or service's flaws.

For example, a law firm that specializes in working for small business franchise owners, could easily admit that one of their competitors has an expertise in the area of corporate mergers.

Even if this other firm is a competitor in other areas, by making a positive statement about that firm's expertise in mergers, the first firm can position itself as being an expert in the own area of franchise law.

Jay Levinson advocates this idea in his Guerrilla Marketing books. The point is not to send your own business away to an other firm, but to position yourself, by re-positioning your competition.

This in effect not only tells your reader that you are objective enough to say good things about competitors, it also allows you to position your competitor as they other guy who does something else.

************

Be careful about what kind of white papers your company produces. If they come across as thinly disguised sales pitches, you will lose all the credibility you had hoped to gain. Of course you are writing your white paper to sell something, but this is not the format to push too hard. This is a document that must maintain its air of objectivity above all else.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Recently I've noticed a big increase in businesses contacting me to write white papers for them. I think it's no coincidence that these calls are coming my way during what looks to be a long and difficult economic downturn.

White papers are remarkable and effective selling tools that smart companies have been using for a long time, but when the economy gets rocky, they may be even more vital in bringing in new business.

Companies that offer a complex product or service, or solve complex problems, will particularly find that white papers can drive business their way . Most often companies using white papers for their marketing are in technical or engineering fields. But I am also seeing law firms, architectural firms, energy companies, consulting firms, medical equipment companies, pharmaceutical companies, lobbyists, manufacturers, banks and investment houses, and accounting firms using them.

But as diverse as these industries are, they all have one thing in common: They will have to compete even harder to attract new business in the coming economy. For them, and actually for any business, white papers are becoming an essential marketing tool.

Michael A. Steizner, the author of "Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged," says that a good white paper reads like an informative magazine article, while at the same time it is a persuasive document. In other words, it is both highly readable and it sells by offering solutions to real problems the audience is experiencing.

One rule of thumb that has helped me when writing white papers is to remember that only about half of the readers will be technical people who speak the jargon of the field I am writing for. My job, therefore, is to make difficult concepts easy to understand for those non-technical people, without losing the technical audience in the process.

Some of the ways I have found to approach this balance are:

• Use case studies. Just as a good magazine article includes stories to illustrate what is being written about, case studies bring the problem and solution to life for the reader. Additionally, case studies add credibility and involve the reader emotional level.
  
  
• Focus on the problem your product or service solves, not the product or service itself. Readers, frankly, are not all that interested in you, your company or your wonderful gadgets until they can see what they will do for them.
  
  
• Emphasize, I really mean emphasize, benefits. Like all marketing documents, benefits are the be all and end all. Ask yourself, what will this widget do for the reader? What pain is the reader experiencing or what pain does the reader want to avoid? What does the reader want to gain? What will change for the reader if she solves this particular problem?
  
  
• Admit flaws. This may sound counter-intuitive, but admitting your product or service's limitations can be one of the biggest credibility boosters you can use. Especially if you admit the flaw in a way that it also sets up a powerful benefit. For example if you are a law firm that has a very narrow practice niche, telling what you don't do can be used to demonstrate that you do your one thing very, very well.
  
  
• Create a before and after scenario for the reader. Unlike a case study, which is a factual story about a real client, you can also write a story in which the reader is the main character. Complacency often rules the day because it is human nature to simply cope with a problem rather than solve it. So pour a little salt into the wound of the existing situation by reminding the reader of the cost and pain of the unresolved problem. Then paint a picture of the reader's company enjoying the benefits of your solution.
  
  
• Demonstrate the risk of not taking action. Paint a realistic picture of what will happen to the reader's company if things keep going the way they are now. While every product or service has a cost, most of the time there is an even bigger cost of NOT buying it. Make sure your reader is aware of this cost for inaction.
  
  
• Write to the reader as a person, not merely as a company. This simply means your white paper should be interesting, informative and easily understood. It also means this person will be taking on a personal risk if he makes the decision to buy from you. Take these personal needs into account.
  
  
• Provide useful, valuable information. Think of including elements of the white paper's more humble cousin, the tip sheet, in the body of your paper. Over and over again, I have found that white papers that have a section of frequently asked questions (FAQs) or bullet point lists of tips and ideas are the papers that get saved and passed along.

The best white papers focus on the interests and problems of readers. Alternatively, poorly-written papers merely focus on the products and services the company would like to sell, without concentrating on the customers' pain and needs.

Remember, for all the information you must convey in your white paper, in the end it is still a document designed to persuade and sell. And in this economy, it is even more important to keep this in mind.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

I just read a great article on Patrick McEvoy's terrific blog, Rainmakers' Best Practices, called How to Sue Drug Companies for Free.

The article features a very simple video that was posted on YouTube on May 1, 2007. Briefly, the video is a very simple presentation by a young lady sitting at her desk discussing Defective Drugs and how to sue Drug Companies.

McEvoy says the video has received over 6500 hits in the year it was first posted, and asks lawyers why they don't put up similar videos that explain a legal problem they work with.

Just imagine, he asks his readers, if a simple, five minute video could generate over 6000 people calling their law offices or visiting their web sites? How much new business would that little video create for a lawyer?

What really struck me was how easy it would be for anyone to produce a similar video to market their own business or professional services.

The easiest way to attract new business, is to give away free, valuable information. "How to" articles, white papers, tip sheets or other formats all demonstrate that you are an expert in your field.

But let me also mention another way to produce a simple video if you (like me) are lacking in a lot of technical know how.

I recently discovered that Powerpoint presentations can be converted to videos by using Microsoft Movie Maker. Movie Maker comes loaded on most Windows packages (which means you probably already have it on your computer, even if you don't already know it).

Just take an existing Powerpoint presentation, or create a new one, and turn it into a video with Movie Maker. You can even record your own voice narrating the presentation.

Then you simply upload the video to YouTube, or any of the hundreds of video sharing sites. I bet you will be astonished by the traffic you receive.

Be sure you read Patrick McEvoy's article and watch the video at How to Sue Drug Companies for Free.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Recently I've been studying the methods of efficiency expert, David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

(Although the purpose of this article is not about productivity or efficiency, I really do recommend David Allen's methods because they are so dramatically different and more naturally intuitive from any other "time management" or efficiency system I've ever read. If you'd like to read more about Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, click this link).

Anyway, Allen really focuses on intuitive methods for getting things done, and he begins by insisting that we start with a clear understanding of the desired outcome before taking on a project.

Some of the ways he recommends forming a clear picture of a desired outcome is to:
· Imagine a wildly successful result. Often we simply set a goal and that is the end of the matter. Allen urges picturing a Spectacular outcome. Imagine beyond what you expect, imagine breaking through any limits, imagine getting beyond-anything-you-could-ever-have-imagined results.

· Ask, "Wouldn't it be great if _______? This simple question is an excellent focusing device for clarifying a desired outcome, because it too pushes the brain to think beyond "reasonable" expectations.

By now of course, you are thinking, "What does this have to do with marketing and copywriting?" The answer is asking these questions is a great way to distinquish between features and benefits.

Why not flip Allen's thinking around and ask these questions from the point of view of your ideal desired customer? This is another way to force yourself to look at what you do and what you offer from inside the mind of the client you are trying to attract.

How often do customers expect to get "wildly successful results." Heck, most of the time they would be satisfied with just meeting what you promised. And how often do they ask, "Wouldn't it be great if ___?" with any thought that someone could actually deliver what they truly want.

Customers, like the rest of us, tend to diminish their own expectations over time. They tend to settle for what they can get because life has taught them that shooting for the stars lands you flat on your face.

But if you can deliver the goods, begin your marketing project by putting yourself inside the mind of your ideal customer and ask, as if you were that customer, what would be a wildly successful result.

Not only will you astonish yourself with what you come up with, you will also astonish your customer.

freelance copywriter, ghost writer, web content writer, lawyer marketing, lawyer advertising, white papers

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

I am guessing that if I were to ask you to name some of the most successful companies you've ever done business with, both McDonalds and Amazon would be on your list. Now this post is not going to sum up all the reasons both companies are enormously successful, but one thing they both do very well is the add-on sale.

In the old days, I still remember when McDonalds' employees asked if you wanted fries with your hamburger and soft drink order. But now they sell them all together in a Value Meal. It is a package of products that go together and essentialy speeds up the decision-making process for customers.

Amazon also is a top notch add-on seller. On your first visit, when you look at different products they offer, they present you with an array of related products that they suggest. Their system has identified these other products as products other customers, who have an interest in the same product you are looking at, have also bought.

On your second visit, Amazon is already building a database on you and your tastes based upon what products you look at (even if you have not yet bought anything from them). With each visit, they learn more and more about you, not in a sinister Big Brother sort of way, but in a way designed to serve you better AND produce more sales for them.

So here is something to think about. What other products or services can you bundle together for your customers? What else do you offer that solve the same problems or serve the needs of the same customers?

For example, many lawyers offer related services when clients need their wills updated. They may offer living wills, powers of attorney, and other related documents to those clients seeking estate planning.

This is the ultimate win-win. The customer benefits because you are looking after more needs than the obvious ones they came to you about. You benefit because this simple approache generates more revenue for your business.

Think through all of your products or services. What else can you offer with them that will benefit the customer? Can you "bundle" them together in such a way that saves the customer money, but still produces more revenue for you?

I'm guessing it is as easy as asking if they want fries with their order.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

A significant part of this blog’s focus is to help law firms and other service businesses develop new business. But getting an entire organization aligned with marketing goals is no easy task.

This is illustrated by an article Larry Bodine wrote about in his Larry Bodine’s LawMarketingBlog called, "Can You Beat This 25 –Question Sales Training Quiz?" A few of the questions on this quiz are:

• Most of our rainmakers are over 65.
  
• Few or no partners have individual business development plans in writing.
  
• Most of our lawyers are active in only bar associations and lawyer groups -- not in any organizations of clients.
  
• The firm does not premeditatedly identify industries where it has experience with the aim of pursuing potential business clients in those industries.
  
• Business development time spent by lawyers is not tracked.
  
• The firm has never broadcast a Webinar.
  
• The firm has no blog.
  

These are all signs of an internal focus that is easy for any organization to slide into. A thriving organization, whether it is a law firm, a consulting practice or a service business, must have an external focus.

This means to have a real finger on the pulse of the marketplace. It is simply not that hard to find out what potential clients want and need. And it should not that hard to get out of the office and join groups of potential clients or take part in charitable causes that can bring your people into contact with potential clients.

If your organization does not track and reward it’s key people for getting actively involved in new business development, nothing will happen. In law firms, and I suspect many other organizations as well, key people are actually penalized for taking time away from performing billable work to get out there and meet new potential clients.

Check out Larry’s article and see if your firm needs to make some changes.

COPYRIGHT © 2007, Charles Brown

I think marketers and copywriters of all industries could benefit from a recent article in Binary Law,which discussed a survey conducted by Primary Research Group. The survey is called, "Survey of [US] Law Firm E-marketing Practices", and it shows how law firms are now marketing their legal services.

One statistic jumped that jumped out at me is 20% of U.S. law firms now have active blogs. Although the survey used a tiny sample of 46 law firms, which limits the applicability of it's results, I still found it exciting to learn that more lawyers are marketing their services with blogs.

Why lawyers should market with blogs

Blogging is one of the best ways out there to generate traffic to your website. Search engines love blogs because of the frequently updated material on the topic a serious blogger produces. A case in point is a recent article I wrote called, "Marketing For Law Firms" about a Kansas lawyer named Grant Griffiths who eventually stopped all his advertising because his blog on Family Law was pulling in all the new clients he could handle.

Another wonderful benefit lawyers can see from writing regular blog posts is the fact that over time, these blog articles become material that can become drafts for magazine articles, white papers, and even full-length books.

Many lawyers and other professionals I know want to write a book "someday" in order to maket their law practices or other businesses. But the project seems impossibly large to them and they are so busy.

Blogging just two or three paragraphs a day can quickly add up to an impressive amount of material. Include reader comments and questions, and the bloggers responses, and this material grows even faster and can soon become a book length manuscript.

The take away from all this is that lawyers are beginning to market themselves in smarter ways. Perhaps the days of inane and useless lawyer ads are beginning to wane.

This lesson is instructive for lawyers and non lawyers as well if they are looking for ways to market themselves and attract new clients.

COPYRIGHT © 2007, Charles Brown

Recently one of the readers of this blog posted a comment about Grant Griffiths, a lawyer in Kansas who has abandoned advertising altogether in favor of writing his blog (thanks Whitney). See the article at Kansas Family & Divorce Lawyer. This is a great article for anyone who sells their knowledge, skill or expertise, because this attorney credits his blog for giving him a number one Google ranking under the keyword, "Kansas family law."

One of the reasons I tend to harp on the flaws I see in law firm advertising in this blog is because I used to practice law. As both a former private practice attorney and a copywriter, I can say that law firms have the worst marketing of any industry or profession I know of.

Whether you are looking at ads placed in the Wall Street Journal by 700 lawyer "blue chip" firms or the Yellow Page ads placed by small main street firms, the ads are almost always dismal. I swear these people wouldn't know a benefit if it came up and bit them on the nose.

And they all follow the same format: "we are a trusted name in admiralty law," "we can get you money if you are hurt in an automobile accident," "we handle cases in elder law, personal injury, corporate law, mergers and aquisitions, DUI defense, etc."

The ads are either empty boasts or laundry lists of the areas of law they practice. (And by the way, you probably won't find the same firm practicing admiralty law, mergers and aquisitions and DUI defense).

So how CAN a law firm market itself effectively without diminishing its professionalism? Easy, write and give out free information pieces.

If you are a lawyer start saving all the memos and briefs you write. Also save your research notes and cases you find interesting as you prepare for court. With few exceptions, these materials can be rewritten for lay audiences and turned into white papers, tip sheets, brochures, articles for your website, or articles you can submit to trade magazines, etc.

You can also start a blog like our friend in Kansas. Write two to three paragraphs a day on your field of practice and in not too many months your site will have a very high number of visitors every day.

Frankly, I would like to see the day when I do at least two-thirds of my copywriting work for law firms. I know from personal experience that it is a wonderful profession when you are working with clients you like and doing the kind of work you believe in. But it is an extremely stressful way to make a living if you have to accept unpleasant clients or take on unpleasant cases just to keep the doors open.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

Today’s post is about great moments in expensive, wasteful advertising.

I am looking through the November 6-12, 2006 issue of the Fort Worth Business Press for ads that actually give readers reasons to act. As you can imagine, these ads are hard to find.

American Express has a full page ad that does pretty well. It has three benefit statements that say:

“I get a cash rebate of up to 4% on American Express Travel.” I earn company-level award points on all our purchases.” And, “I save automatically with cash rebates from leading suppliers.”

Following these benefits is the headline which reads, “My company is mid-size, but I save big.”

And that’s all. The main feature of the ad is acres and acres of white space with a small blurb at the bottom a picture of the American Express ExtrAA Corporate Card and a Picture of a paper airplane made out of a $100 bill.

I give them credit for actually stating benefits. What a novel idea in big corporate advertising! But the white space? White space never sold anything. Never.

The next wasteful ad is for the law firm of Blaies & Hightower, L.L.P. The only positive thing I can say about this ad is that they only spent money on a half page.

Other than that, it shows three very serious-looking lawyers in expensive suits and six lines of copy that says nothing:

“When the stakes are high, you need more than legal knowledge. … You need the strongest commercial litigation and personal injury trial lawyers on your side. .. Attorneys who lead the courtroom with integrity and honor.”

The sad thing is, someone actually thought these were benefit statements.

Neither ad called for action on the part of a potential customer/client. They gave contact information and that’s all. But that is futile without giving the prospect a REASON to contact them.

Neither ad made a concrete offer. There were no promises of a benefit in exchange for an action from the prospect. The Blaies Camp; Hightower ad was exactly the same as every other law firm ad we’ve ever seen. For all I know, the same serious-looking lawyers appear on all of them. And you just have to love the line, “Attorneys who lead the courtroom with integrity and honor” as a masterpiece of copy that says nothing.

What both these ads need is an injection of direct response techniques. American Express can offer a free guide to corporate financial strategies that would show a corporate officer how to save money on all company expenditures, how to manage day-to-day cash flow and maximize the rebates they offer.

Blaies & Hightower could offer a report, a case study or a white paper on any one of the areas of law the practice. These could contain tips on how to avoid litigation, what new government regulations effect businesses or how to profit from recent trends in the law.

By offering free information products, neither firm would diminish the brand image they are striving for (and actually in my mind, they would stand out in a positive way). But not only that, these white papers, guides or booklets could generate leads and build a list of potential customers/clients for these firms.

The sad truth is both these ads were incredibly wasteful. White space sells nothing and copy that says nothing, sells nothing. Better luck next time guys.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

For many businesses, an annual ad in the Yellow Pages or one of its competitors, can be a huge investment. If the ad works well, it can bring a in steady stream of new customers all year long.

But what if your ad just doesn’t pull in as much business as you need? Worse, what if it doesn’t even break even for you? Many businesses depend on the Yellow Pages for most of their sales for the year, so the risk of an underperforming ad is something to be reckoned with.

Here are a few ideas that should help you maximize this investment and generate the highest possible return throughout the year.

1. Test your ad. How do you do this? In the months leading up to the deadline to place your Yellow Page ad, run several small or even classified ads in your local media. Test several headlines, run them against each other to see which one pulls the most. The winner gets to be your standard bearer all year long.
   
   
2. Use your ad to generate leads by offering a free booklet or some other form of free information. Not only will this pull in a better response than your competitors, it will also build a list of interested prospects for you to send out future mailings.
   
   
3. If you go the lead generation route, give your booklet an interesting title, like “31 Ways to Save Money on Car Repairs,” (for the auto repair shop). Or “19 Health Care Tips For Your Child” (for a pediatrician). Be sure this title is prominently displayed on your ad and make it the focus of your ad.
   
   
4. Instead of one large ad that reads like a laundry list of all the services you offer, experiment with several smaller ads offering a single service. Law firms especially put up really boring Yellow Page ads that do little more than list all the specialties they practice. Unless your ad is the biggest, with the brightest colors, and is in the first page of your category, you will have a hard time getting a decent return on your investment for such an ad. But narrowly-targeted smaller ads give you a much better way of catching the eye of a specific group of clients who need a specific service.
   
   
5. Piggy back on the narrowly-targeted smaller ads by offering more free information related to each specialty. Offering free booklets or newsletters positions you as an expert within your specialty.
   
   
6. Now here’s my soapbox.. I have called on too many expensive Yellow Page ads only to be met with incompetent or rude people on the other end of the phone. Train your employees how to answer the phone, to return calls promptly and to have intelligent answers once a caller actually responds to your ad.
   
   
7. Don’t just automatically run the same ad year after year. Your competitors aren’t going to just roll over and play dead. If you run a successful ad this year, you may just find a dozen imitators running very similar ads next year. Find ways to differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack. Don’t claim to be the biggest, the best or the most experienced. None of that matters to your potential clients. Don’t try to fight it out among the other big fist in the pond, find your own pond and be the only fish in it.
   
   
8. Write your ad to solve a really vexing problem your reader may be having. To use the law firm ads as an example again, if you specialize in juvenile criminal law, target your ad to the worried parent who has a child in trouble. Make your information piece about “what to do if your teenager is in trouble with the law.” People pick up the Yellow Pages because they have a problem. And they will call the ad that best demonstrates the ability to solve that problem.
   
   
9. Be a specialist. Specialists make more money than generalists. So, if you can, let your ad show your specialty. But a category is not a specialist. (Using lawyers again) if you specialize in white-collar criminal law, don’t just say you practice criminal law. If you specialize in personal injury involving a reckless commercial vehicle, don’t just say personal injury. If you specialize in contract negotiations, don’t just say you practice business law.
   
   
10. Your headline is the most important part of your ad. So don’t just run with the first thing that comes to mind. At the risk of repeating myself, test your headlines. Put your strongest benefit front and center in your headline. Address a problem in your headline. Make a promise in your headline. Headlines are too important to leave to chance. After all, do you want to live a whole year with a mistake?

Don't put up your ad blindly. Too many businesses put no thought into their ad, and then have to live with the results for an entire year.
freelance copywriter, writing web content, copywriting tips

COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.

Inch for inch, a small ad just might be the best advertising deal around. If done right, a small space or classified ad can bring you profits far exceeding what a larger often produces. Here are some ideas to get more bang for your buck with small ads:

1. Use small ads to test headlines and other key elements before you pay for a larger ad. Headlines are funny things, you really never know which one will take off and be your best money maker. Instead, you have to let the people who read your ad “vote” for the headline that appeals to them the most with how they respond. So it makes a lot more sense to test headlines on small ads before you spend money on a larger ad.
   
   
2. Use small ads to generate leads. Offer a free booklet or some other free information product in your small ad. When the reader gets your information, make sure it contains far more useful information than sales message. But even then you will have much more space to sell than in a full space ad in a publication.
   
   
3. Of course you should also make use of the leads generated by your small ad. Send these people follow up information. This way, your single small ad enables you to recontact the same interested people over and over again.
   
   
4. Instead of using a single, large ad to tell about your wide list of services or products, use several small ads to target each niche you cover. For example, the Yellow Page ads of many law firms are little more than laundry lists of the services they provide. A more effective campaign might be to target each specialty with a single small ad. Take this one step further, and the law firms might offer different free information products or white papers on each small ad targeting each specialty.
   
   
5. Speaking of Yellow Page ads, many businesses make the expensive mistake of putting up a year-long ad without testing. Since the Yellow Pages only come out once a year, it is not feasible to test the ad there. But you can run several small ads in local publications to see which one is most effective and choose the winner as your year-long Yellow Page ad. Running an untested Yellow Page ad is one mistake that can cost you not only in a poor return on investment, it also causes you to go a whole year with a lower sales than you might otherwise have been able to realize.
   
   
6. If your product has multiple uses or benefits, highlight each use or benefit in separate ads. Don’t count on readers wading through a long list text to get to the single benefit that appeals to them.
   
   
7. Test, test and then test again. Small ads give you a cost-effective way to compare many different ideas to see which ones pull in the highest response from readers.
   
   
8. Effective headlines for small ads can be shorter and punchier than larger ads. Try to compress as much meaning as possible in five words or less. Here are some headlines that have worked very well on small ads:
   $500 a Week
   
   15 Minutes a Day
   
   Free 48 Page Booklet
   
   Anyone Can Learn
   
   Fun-Packed
   
   No Obligation
   
   Money Back If Not Delighted
   
   Send No Money
   
   Mrs. E.C. Made $65
   
   Learn In 6 Weeks
   
   (reprinted from Tested Advertising Methods, 5th Edition, by John Caples)
   
   
9. If you are using the small ad to generate leads offering free information, give your booklet or information product a good title and experiment with using that title as your headline (but test, test, test). For example, “101 Ways To Help Your Child Get Better Grades,” or “33 Ways To Unlock The Hidden Job Market.”
   

It is hard to imagine any marketing plan that cannot be made better with the smart use of small ads. They are cost effective, allow you to more precisely target your intended audience and …..can be tested.

freelance copywriter, writing web content, copywriting tips

COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.

Just when I had all but given up on lawyers’ advertising, along comes one attorney who really knows how to get it right.

As a former attorney –turned freelance copywriter, I have always paid special attention to how law firms market themselves. And, with very few exceptions, how badly they do so.

But yesterday, when I opened up a copy of the Fort Worth Business Press, an insert fell out that caught my eye. It was a 5 ½ x 8 ½ postcard written by Clark R. Cowley, who practices intellectual property law for the law firm of Whitaker, Chalk, Swindler & Sawyer, L.L.P. (Whitaker Chalk) in Fort Worth, Texas.

What is so refreshingly unique about Mr. Cowley’s postcard/insert, is that instead of it making a list of claims to be the best, biggest or most experienced (which is what most law firm advertisements do) he actually demonstrates his expertise and knowledge by providing the reader with free information.

The back of the card is sort of a mini-white paper on the topic of legal remedies to Cybersquatting. “Cybersquatting” is the bad faith registration of Internet domain names identical or confusingly similar to another company’s trademark or business name. According to Cowley, “the cybersquatter’s motive is often to hold the domain name hostage in hopes of selling it to the rightful party, or to post unflattering, obscene or scandalous material on that site to diminish the rightful party’s business reputation.”

Cowley then briefly lists four legislative acts or regulations under which the party can seek a legal remedy.

The whole card is brief, demonstrates Mr. Cowley's knowledge and expertise, conveys an image of professionalism, is completely free of puffery, and leaves the reader wanting to learn more.

And what is even more encouraging is this card is one of a series that Whitaker Chalk puts out called “brief legal seminars.”

In a recent article called Freelance Copywriter Secrets: Can White Papers and Image Ads Get Along?, I wrote about how deplorable typical law firm advertising is.

On one hand, you have the ads from personal injury lawyers who want to help you get more money from an insurance company if you’ve been injured in an accident (here in Texas, we have one guy who calls himself the “The Texas Hammer,” need I say more?). On the other extreme, are the ads from firms who are so concerned about maintaining a highly professional image, that their ads literally say nothing at all.

If the other “Brief Legal Seminars” are as well crafted as this one is, I think we can assume Whitaker Chalk is on the right track.

Could this ad be improved? Yes, I would first urge this firm to write a series of full white papers on these same topics, and offer them free to any legitimate inquirer.

In this way, they have a second opportunity to demonstrate their expertise. But even more important, they can build up an opt-in list of people and companies who are interested in these topics.

White papers give a strong boost to any business’ image of professionalism, knowledge and expertise. But they are more than learned discourses on a certain subject. They are also powerful marketing pieces that give the reader compelling reasons to do business with the author.

Michael Stelzner, in his book, Writing White Papers, calls white papers a cross between a magazine article, with its ability to make a technical issue understandable to the non-professional; and a brochure, with a convincing sales message.

Unfortunately, Whitaker Chalk has missed their opportunity to compile a list of opt-in subscribers who want more information. Creating such a list would become enormously valuable as a source of new, qualified clients. As Seth Godin, in his book Permission Marketing points out, these are people who have “raised their hand” to indicate they want to receive this sort of information. An opt-in list also builds loyalty among the subscribers even before they become clients.

But all in all, I would have to rate this little card from Whitaker Chalk as one of the best law firm advertisements I have seen in a very long, long time.

P.S. To any law firms needing someone to write compelling white papers: There are very few copywriters who also have a background as an attorney. If you need a writer who brings both fields of expertise to the table, please call me today at the contact information listed above. Charles Brown

freelance copywriter, white paper writer, writing web content, copywriting tips

We freelance copywriters are often an analytical bunch. Always trying to tinker with ad copy to see if it can be made better. This includes our own copy as well as the work of others.

For example, David Garfinkel, in his September 4, 2006 blog post at http://world-copywriting-institute.typepad.com/ provides an excellent analysis in the article, "An Expensive Ad that Almost Gets It.”

Before we look at what David says about this ad, let me set the stage: I firmly believe that elements of direct response can be successfully incorporated with so-called “image ads” that are designed to establish a dignified brand.

For example, brokerage firms like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley do this all the time. You frequently see their ads offering booklets on their market forecasts and white papers on their analysis of the economy. Despite the heavy restrictions placed upon financial services marketing, these ads manage to do three things simultaneously:

1. convey dignity and a brand image,
   
   
2. present a strong sales message, and
   
   
3. generate leads for their salespeople.

Direct Response vs. “Advertising Art”

Regular readers of my blog may recall my story of a copywriting job I didn’t get. The client was a high profile interior design firm in Florida that catered to a very affluent clientele.

The ad agency that interviewed me had created a beautiful two-page spread depicting a home most of us can only drool over. It truly was an example of advertising art.

The trouble was the copy. It relied only on a single sentence that frankly said nothing at all. This sentence was presumably intended to arouse so much curiosity that people would flock to the client’s store or tie up the entire South Florida telephone system trying to call in. (no website address was mentioned on the ad).

When asked for my input, I suggested that the client create an information piece such as a booklet full of decorating ideas. My thinking was that such a booklet would not only have high, perceived value to the reader. It could also, in the process of offering numerous how-tips, generate additional sales for the client’s design services as well as specific items of furniture and wall decorations.

I then suggested the beautiful ad could feature the booklet as a free offer to anyone who called or stopped in. (Of course, they would have to provide their names and contact information in order to receive the booklet, thereby creating a list of prospective customers for the client).

Alas, the creative types felt my ideas would detract from the beauty of their layout and would smell too much of “salesmanship.” I didn’t get the assignment, the ad ran exactly as I had seen it, and appeared only one time in a very high-profile magazine.

Trying To Sell The Law Firm

Fast forward to the article in David Garfinkel’s blog. The ad shows a picture of Craig Newmark, the founder of the hugely successful craigslist.com. The ad’s headline, PEOPLE WHO MAKE GREAT COMPANY’S WORK, seems to offer insights into how people like Newmark create and grow successful companies.

Presumably, the ad seeks to attract clients to the law firm with an implied promise that the firm will help entrepreneurs become as successful as Craig Newmark.

Disappointingly, the ad offers zero benefits to the reader and breaks the headline’s implied promise. The ad concludes will the thundering dud of a sales message, “Perkins Cole: Legal counsel to great companies like craigslist.”

What if the firm had written a white paper on the legal needs of small, growing companies? What if the white paper fulfilled the promise of the ad’s headline by providing how-to information on how entrepreneurs can grow their companies with help from knowledgeable law firms? And what if this white paper was featured in the ad as available free to any reader who asked for it?

Why White Papers and Image Ads Go Together

White papers convey the dignity such a law firm is trying to project, but they are also valuable sales tools. They promise - and absolutely must deliver - valuable how-to information, or analysis helpful for readers’ decision making. They target certain types of readers who, because of their interest in this topic, identify themselves as potential clients.

Here are a few ideas that should help you create a marketing campaign based on both white papers and image ads:

• Begin with a clear idea of what decision you want your reader to make. This applies to both the ad and to the white paper. With the ad, you obviously want qualified readers to contact you, provide their address and/or their email address and telephone number. With the white paper, you want them to make a decision to contact you for an appointment. Not having this clear idea will cause major problems later if your work fails to lead the reader to a decision.
  
  
• Don’t forget to talk about benefits. Even with image advertising, benefits are essential. Yet image ads routinely shy away from talking about benefits. Too salesman like, I suppose.
  
  
• Make a promise and fulfill it. The headline of your ad, the ad’s copy, the free offer, the title of the white paper and every single word inside the white paper, should make a promise to either solve a problem for the reader or to help the reader realize a desired change. And after all that is done, deliver on that promise.
  
  
• Generate leads. I have written before on the value of 2-Step advertising, and why it delivers more sales than one-shot ads. Although my article, Freelance Copywriter Secrets: Why 2-Step Ads Make More Sales, is not specifically written about image advertising for professional service providers, you may still find it to be helpful on this subject. One of the primary reasons to use a direct response device is to generate a list of prospective clients, who “opt in” to receive your follow up emails and letters. With a list of such people, your marketing becomes a continual matter of re-contacting interested, qualified prospective clients.
  
  
• Create a series of white papers. Become known as the law firm, design company or professional services organization that has the right stuff. Within a law firm, for example, many lawyers have different specialties, each worthy of a multitude of white papers. Stuck for ideas on what to write about? Just look at what problems clients want to have solved for them. Each problem can result in a new white paper.

Image ads and white papers make the perfect marketing marriage. The more valuable information you give away, the more new business and new profits come back to you.

freelance copywriter, copywriting tips, freelance commercial writer