HOT TOPICS

In this tough economy, it’s not a question of which marketing tool works best.  Success isn’t dependent solely upon the eye-catching design of your website or advertising, or whether you choose blogs, billboards, brochures, or branding.

The secret of success today is knowing how to blend them all together to achieve specific, measurable revenue goals.

This fun, and fast-paced session will walk you through a simple, clear methodology that ensures the successful creation and implementation of powerful marketing campaigns, business-development strategies, and branding initiatives.

Through this rigorous approach, digital/online and social-marketing strategies are tightly integrated with traditional marketing and PR to achieve specific business objectives.

What’s more important on your website, the marketing or the technology?

Finally, here’s how all the pieces fit together. Online marketing is today’s hottest topic, but few seem to know what it all means, or how to balance the many different components.

Can websites really persuade prospects to hire your firm or eliminate it from consideration? Do full-service firms need Facebook pages? Can your lawyers ethically receive LinkedIn “recommendations” or list “skills and expertise”?

Should full-service firms care whether they rank highly in Google searches? Can you legally bid on your competitors’ names on Google? In this fascinating and fast-paced presentation, Ross discusses these topics and more, from SEO and “content marketing” to cutting-edge eye-tracking research.

Built off of actual law firm case studies worldwide and the latest b2c and b2b research, Ross will identify which components are necessary, and how to use the latest marketing tools and techniques. How can law firms use the multivariate testing technology developed for president Obama’s 2008 campaign to continuously improve your website and online marketing?

Target and industry marketing is among the most efficient and effective approaches to business development. Focusing like a laser yields faster results than a scattershot approach. Becoming known as a niche specialist is arguably the fastest route to client-development success. From the Bug Lawyers to the Beer Lawyer, for attorneys committed to client development, this simple, practical, entertaining and results-oriented program will show them exactly how to do it efficiently from the approach to closing the deal.

After all, lawyers invented Social Marketing — that is, creating and nurturing close personal relationships.

Social platforms are simply tools to accelerate and extend your reach. However new rules of engagement apply, and when well understood and executed will yield impressive and sustainable results.  Before becoming social you must first become user-friendly, and we will give you the Top 10 do’s and don’ts. Social marketing is not about having a Facebook page; it is about managing your own brand.

If you are confused about social strategies, this fun and fast-paced presentation will show you how best to develop and execute a successful social marketing program.

It all flows from the message.  What’s your unique strategy?  How will you stand out from the crowd?  Your website is your 24/7 face to the world, your most-important marketing tool but too many firms proclaim the same basic messages – Quality, Results, Excellence, or Service.  These limp platitudes are then illustrated by the obvious clichés — globes, columns, gavels, skylines, and “smiling lawyers.”

To succeed in today’s tough economy, you must do better.  In one fun, fast-paced and visually stunning hour, attendees will learn how to develop their own unique strategy, blasting through dozens of differentiated messages and real-life examples of the best (and worst) law firm ads and websites, including a detailed case study.  You will leave energized, educated and entertained, with a better understanding of how to differentiate your firm or practice.  This program is appropriate for marketing-oriented lawyers too.   A perfect program for senior administrators and lawyers.

Every firm has practices that offer real leadership opportunities. They’re dynamic and well led, or in a growing market segment. In larger firms, an industry group or specialty area can be spread across a range of offices and practices, impeding cross-selling.

Two top firms figured out a solution.

This presentation showcases the effective efforts of a large and small firm in targeting a practice and industry group for market dominance.  Drinker Biddle sought growth in Health Care, although their lawyers were spread across 14 practices and 11 offices.

This initiative helped them work together and cross-sell, founded upon powerful stories, microsite, and team retreat.

By now, most lawyers have a LinkedIn profile.  But most aren’t using them especially effectively.  This presentation helps them understand why LinkedIn is an important tool for every professional today, and shows the simple steps they can do themselves improve their profile.  They will learn how to quickly get to 500+ Connections, embed the strategic keywords that help them rank higher in the most-important searches relevant to their practices, and generally convey a more professional, high-quality impression.  This presentation may qualify for CLE credit in most states.

Ross speaks worldwide to international law, accounting, and professional-services networks.  This popular, fun presentation details how to generate more referrals within the networks, and teaches individual firms how to increase the chance that they’ll receive them.  The presentation was organized into four sections.

There are actually four different tactics to (1) create more referral opportunities, and also (2) increase the chance that you’ll receive them once they’re available.

These strategies include marketing:

(1) Yourself within the network

(2) Your firm within the network

(3) The network within your firm

(4) The network to your clients

They involve building awareness of yourself and your firm, and connecting both to a particular geography, so that you become synonymous with that jurisdiction.

A firm that doesn’t believe Marketing generates revenue gets marketing that doesn’t. They hire less-skilled marketers, under-fund their efforts, and red-pen the effectiveness out of any potentially powerful tools or strategies.

Firms that believe Marketing can make them lots of money, gets marketing that does. They invest in their firms’ future and dominate their target markets.  They grow faster than their competitors, and thrive during recessionary economies.  They attract better people, make more money, and have more fun.

• Social Media for Lawyers. Everything you need to know to build a practice — from LinkedIn and Twitter, to blogs and SEO.
• Marketing and Business-Development Best Practices.
• Marketing in a Recession.  It’s Time to Dominate!
• Go From “Zero” to “Guru” in Three Months.
• The Cold, Hard Truth Re SEO and Social Media. No hype. No BS. What works for professionals
• The Lawyer’s Guide to Social Media Tools.  An up-to-date overview of the latest tools, traps, and techniques.
• Integrated Marketing. How to build a practice online using an integrated mix of powerful tools, from blogs to branding, and SEO to social media.
• Strategic SEO.  How lawyers and firms can use search-engine optimization to dominate their markets.
• “From Hammers to Hand Grenades” – Creative Marketing and Legal Ethics.
• Focused Marketing: An Efficient, Ethical Approach to Business Development.
• Topless Marketing: An entertaining 300-year history of law firm marketing.
• Focused Marketing – the Shortest Path to Market Dominance 
• Niche / Industry Marketing: An Efficient, Practical, Effective Process.
• Website 101:  How to develop an effective, results-oriented website.
• “We’re Different! So Why Does No One Know It?”  Developing a Killer Strategy.
• Jumping on the Differentiation Brandwagon – Positioning Your Firm, Practice, or Office.
• From Strategy to Swag: Marketing Your Message and the Challenge of Tchotchkes
• Creating and Selling Innovation to Lawyers.
• Outside-the-Box Marketing Ideas.
• How to Work a Room and Live to Profit From it – Ethical Networking.  100 simple, practical tips to make networking less threatening and more effective.
• No Network? No Clients.  How introverts can build a practice – without glad-handing.
• Net/Working a Room, with Live Practice.
• “Get Exposed by the Media, And Benefit From It – Using Public Relations to Ethically Build Your Firm.”
• Advertise Online and in Print.  The pros, cons, and new rules.
• PR for PI Firms.  Powerful public relations can build a personal injury reputation quickly. Here’s how.
• How to Create Powerful, Ethical Advertising (Without Skylines, Gavels, Globes, or Columns…).
• Public Relations for Litigators.  How to handle your own PR
• “He Said What?” – A Candid, Interactive Client Roundtable.
• “Worst-Case Scenario” – This is Not Your Typical Legal Seminar.
• Developing an Effective Individual Marketing Plan.
• “No one’s leaving ’til it’s done!”  Writing an Associate Marketing Plan.
• “I’ll never hire them again!” – Client Service and Site Visits.
• Secrets of Client Retention and Maximizing Profits.
• Step-by-Step Marketing for Associates.
• Marketing Overview or “Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know about Ethical Marketing, But Were Too Bored to Ask.”
• Painfully Practical Associate Training.
• Getting your Associates Ready to Market and Generate Business
• Secrets of Successful Cross-Selling.  It Can Work.  No, Really.
• Key-Client Program.  Retaining Your Top Clients.
• How to market Specific types of firms: An International Network, An Insurance Practice, A Specialty Practice, A Divorce Practice, A Litigation Practice
• Secrets of Successful Cross-Selling.  It Can Work.  No, Really.
• Key-Client Program.  Retaining Your Top Clients.
• Recruiting is Just Marketing – To a Different Audience.
• “If you give a mouse a cookie….”  Compensation Issues for Law Firms.
• “The Art of War for Lawyers.” What a 2,500-Year-Old Chinese General Can Teach You About Marketing
• “Oh, those darn kids!”  Generational Issues in Law and Professional-Services Firms.
• How to Organize a Great Firm Retreat.