(silence)
Peter Webb: Okay.
Also use the same questions box
for any questions that come up during the webinar
and I'll answer those questions at the end.
Okay.
So, let's get started.
It's really important to know the state of the industry
so you can better utilize your digital marketing
and to get more of the clients you want.
Right?
And with, you know, do it yourself solutions,
build your own websites,
the ability to manage your own digital advertising
with just a few clicks,
it's easy to get something up and live online
but to succeed online you need to have a plan
which addresses exposure,
positioning,
messaging,
experience,
tracking,
and conversion.
Right?
It may be time to refresh your website campaign
and ensure you're doing everything you can
to get the cases you should be getting.
Because running the same strategy you did in years prior
is not going to continue to produce the cases
like it used to.
So topics today that I'll be covering will include:
Understanding the digital world as we know it,
dwindling attention spans of those going online
and how that affects you,
getting through to clients you want,
preparing your firm for the future,
and then I'll do a final recap
and some key takeaways
and then we'll open it up for Q&A.
So, my name is Peter Webb
and I'm the Senior Vice President of Sales at Scorpion
and law firms call me in,
typically to identify and evaluate
what they need to be doing
to make the most of their marketing.
And having been with Scorpion since its inception in 2001,
I've had the pleasure of working with thousands of firms
that come up with a tailored strategy
that works best for them.
Whether they're a large firm or a small firm,
you should really have a tailored strategy
to fit that approach.
And it's my goal today to explain
what key factors are influencing how you can get cases
and what you should be paying attention to
in order to overhaul or fine tune
your digital legal marketing as of 2018
and, of course, beyond.
So, this is the digital world as we know it
and it's growing exponentially every day.
The internet is always changing
and you need to continue to adapt
if you want to continue to be relevant.
Those who become complacent will lose out on cases
they should be getting.
Now, a third of our day today
is comprised of being inundated by everything from
online ads,
social feeds,
news alerts,
sports scores,
apps,
notifications,
and more.
To put this into perspective,
over 90% of the population in America
have access to the internet now.
Largely thanks to smartphones,
tablets, and the like.
This is changing the game
and how we play it.
Things are not what they used to be.
And I speak to law firms all the time
that are doing the same thing
that they've been doing for years.
In fact, some of them still have the same website.
They haven't realized what they're missing.
I can't tell you how many firms I've spoken with
that were burned by some agency several years back
and they never gave it another shot.
They just wrote it off as,
it wasn't for them.
Well a lot has changed
in just the last year alone,
that you wouldn't believe it.
You can get cases as long as you do it correctly.
And you join up with the right partner.
A few factors that effect where we're at today
and how we make choices include
that technology's moving faster than we can keep up with.
You know, the internet has changed
everything from how we communicate
to how we live our lives.
Nearly everything is competing for our attention
and today we essentially live in an age of convenience.
Life appears to be getting easier
and rarely do we stop to think about it.
So, how is this ease of technology translated into
how we get cases moving forward?
So, this is the world as we know it.
And this is how most families spend their time together.
Personal interaction is all but dying out.
People in today's society
spend the vast majority of their time
connected to the internet in one way or another.
Kids as young as one years old
are playing on iPhone's and tablets.
Like it or not,
we're grooming them for a digital life.
Traditional methods of getting in front
of your ideal clients have changed,
you know, especially from years past.
There are so many new ways to
digitally reach people today than ever before.
You need to reach them where they spend their time.
Sometimes, people are on Facebook.
And sometimes they're searching on Google.
But sometimes they happen to find themselves in jail
because someone was arrested
or unfortunately they might be in an emergency room
because someone got hurt.
When they use their cellphone to go online,
you should be in front of them.
Or when they leave to go home and hop online,
you should be in front of them.
When they get back to work
and start using their emails,
you should be in front of them there as well.
Almost everyone is on a device
and the Internet's a pretty big place.
It's all about planting that seed
and being top of mind
anywhere someone might be going online.
Think of it this way,
if you're a criminal defense attorney
or a family law attorney
and a potential client who's arrested at night for,
let's say, a drug crime.
They could be more inclined to, let's say,
do a search for an attorney from a mobile device
whereas a stay at home parent might look, let's say,
in the middle of the day from a desktop computer
while their spouse is at work.
Regardless of circumstance,
you have to be present to get in front of them.
Now, once they find you,
what do they see?
You have to grab their attention immediately.
People's attention span is not what it used to be.
As recent as ten years ago,
the attention span of an individual going online
was between 12 to 15 seconds
and as a point of reference,
what I just said was about 12 to 15 seconds.
Now, would anyone like to know
what the attention span of an individual today is?
And I'll give you a hint...
It's not eight seconds like you see in the slide,
which is the attention span of a goldfish.
It's two to four seconds.
That's one 1,000,
two 1,000,
three 1,000,
four 1,000.
That's it.
You either captured the person
or you did not.
You should start thinking about
how well your marketing is taking this into consideration.
Especially with your messaging
because if it doesn't convey,
why you, immediately,
you may lose them.
Now I recently met with a firm
who had a website that took 17 seconds to load,
primarily because of the video
that they were playing on the home page.
Now, Google advises that the ideal load time
should be about three to four seconds.
When talking with this firm,
they were a bit reluctant to do away with this video,
you know, because they put so much time and effort
and they were pretty proud of it,
but you have to remember...
Everything has to work together
to create that ideal experience.
Load time
and your message
and why to hire you
and how to call you.
Everything.
Losing someone,
who could have been that next client of yours,
because your website didn't load quick enough
is never worth it.
A first impression takes only seconds
and those seconds could mean the difference
between you getting a case
or that potential client going directly to your competition.
Your online presence is where most of your clients
will first encounter your practice
and decide if you're worth calling or not.
So it's important to think about
what kind of message you're sending to potential clients
and how quickly they're getting it.
Now, take a moment and reflect on your daily habits
and then think of how similar
or different they are from your clients'.
More importantly, empathize with them.
The better you do that,
the better you can think with
the fact that you are not your client
and that you really should focus on them first.
Different people have different patterns and behaviors.
You gotta target the people you're going after.
Right?
So think of what a profile looks like for
let's say, your ideal clients.
You know, what age group are they?
Where would they be geographically located?
Let's look at socioeconomic factors.
Income,
education level,
device type.
All of these can be used to better target your ideal client.
For instance, to put this into perspective,
let's use geographic location as a criteria.
Where do injured people go?
Well they go to the hospital.
So, using geographic targeting,
it is possible to target people going online
when they're in an emergency room
or at the hospital.
And you can tailor your message
for the people in the hospital
and blanket anyone within that area
to get a laser focused message across to them.
And we happen to generate clients
all the time by doing this.
That's just one of the ways
of using the profiling
and where the location is to better fine tune the message.
Right?
And there are ways that you can start using technology
to think smarter.
To get in front of these potential clients.
We use technology to do millions of calculations a second
to determine the best way
to get in front of specific clients
depending on the patterns in their behaviors.
Our technology is always tracking
what's converting to clients
And what was successful in generating that client.
By knowing this information,
you'll be able to better target clients you want
as opposed to just trying to make the phone ring
with clients and calls you don't.
If you don't have an agency
that has systems to leverage this,
it's my recommendation you speak with someone who does
and you should probably do it pretty soon.
Here we have the three R's to online marketing
and it's pretty easy to remember
and it ensures you're paying attention
to what's most important,
which is essentially getting in front of the right person,
at the right time,
with the right message,
depending on the device they're on.
You need to have a strategy to target your ideal clientele,
to get those cases that you're going after.
This would be getting in front of the right person.
You need to ensure your budget and strategy
allow for sustainability
in all of the key places they should be.
With people, you know,
looking online at all times of day,
you need to be found wherever they're looking,
whenever they're looking.
The right time could mean you getting that case
or not.
Lastly, without the right message,
you will not convert each potential client
into a newly signed client
or not as many as you could.
The message is what will either have you passed by
or eagerly clicked on.
The better your messages communicate
what separates you from the rest,
the better you'll generate those cases.
So let's put this into a practical application.
Think of an individual who is arrested
with a DUI, let's say, a few nights prior.
And he goes online at night
to find out what happens to his license
and they didn't want to search on their computer,
you know, at work for fear of getting fired
or looked down upon, right?
So this client,
you'd need to show up where they live
and at night, right?
Let's use a different example.
An individual that can't take it anymore.
They have overwhelming bills.
And they go online to find a bankruptcy attorney
first thing in the morning, right?
So now we have someone in the morning looking.
Or someone who's looking up,
let's say during their lunch hour,
what happens to her grandmother's estate
now that she's passed away.
Timing and targeting,
along with messages that emphasize, you know,
exactly why you are gonna be the keys to dominating.
Your internet, you know, essentially plan
needs to really harness all of these factors.
So if you're looking to improve your current campaign,
you should really look at
how well are you making sure you're in the right place,
at the right time,
with the right message.
Now one of the biggest issues I go over,
with many different types of law firms,
are the fact that their message
and content doesn't impinge
and it isn't effective.
Most websites are still written
to get search engine optimization
but unfortunately it doesn't read well for real people.
I'll give you an example
so you can see how common this really is.
If you were to go to a personal injury website
and click on, let's say,
a trucking accident page
and it's talking about the fact that these crashes
can be serious or fatal.
That trucks typically weigh 60,000 pounds
and that there are over 1,000 deaths a year
due to commercial vehicles.
Think about it.
If the person who was on the website
was in a truck accident,
your potential ideal client,
and they just wanted to know,
"Well why should I hire you versus any other firm?"
They don't need to know all of those statistics.
They don't need to know, you know,
the fact that in other states it could happen
because the driver is sleepy.
All of those things could obviously happen.
It already happened to them, right,
and that's why they're there.
They need to know why you are the firm for them.
So, firms that don't convert
and haven't addressed this issue,
typically are doing the wrong thing
and just spend more money to increase the traffic.
One of the ways you can really determine what works
and what doesn't is looking into:
Does your tracking reporting support
that you're signing cases directly from people
turning to the internet for representation
and not to word of mouth or referral sources?
Meaning,
if you're getting a lot of clients from referral sources,
that's not essentially what we're talking about here.
We want to know,
people going online that are looking,
what dollars are you spending and how are they converting?
Right?
And you should really look into which pages
or locations are capturing their attention.
Right?
And equally important is what isn't working,
so you can discontinue it or change it.
These can become the difference
between gaining the client you want
or letting them go to one of your competitors.
To keep someone's attention you must provide value.
The person needs to feel that they are in the right place
to answer their questions or solve their needs.
Now here's an exercise you can do with your own website
to see if you're doing a good job of that.
Go to your practice area content on your site
and actually read it.
Are you citing statistics?
Are you regurgitating information that everyone says?
Or are you really setting yourself apart?
Are you leveraging why people hire you?
Are you using legal terms
that don't communicate to the layman?
Such as premises liability,
mass torts,
or, let's say, probate?
This is what needs to change to capture their attention
and convert better.
Remember, to keep someone's attention
you must be providing value.
Speaking of capturing attention,
social media's quickly becoming
one of the most cost effective ways to advertise online.
And it's because it allows you
to reach people in their comfort zone
where they're spending most of their time online anyway.
Now there's 7.5 billion people on earth
and 2.5 billion of us are active on social media
with a mobile device.
That's 34%.
Pretty surprising.
Now the mistake most firms still make is thinking
that social media is only a form for posting things
so they can look, quote-unquote,
"active."
They don't end up taking advantage
of the real power of social media.
Social media isn't free.
You're paying with your privacy.
This is a channel rife with opportunity
but only for those that seize it.
You know, here's a good example.
Fourth of July is coming up;
think of all the DUI's that will be occurring.
Think of the fact that Fourth of July
is the number one day of the year
where most car accidents occur.
You could target, let's say,
males or females between the ages of 21 and 41
with a message you know will resonate with that age group.
You could run it the week before the holiday
and raise awareness with social advertising
for a lot cheaper
than running traditional pay per click.
There's more attention on social media
than anywhere else online.
Food for thought, in terms of what we've been able to do.
We were able to deliver a targeted ad
to an individual who is in a burn unit at a hospital
and they ended browsing their social media feed
from the hospital bed and saw the ad.
And they took it as,
their prayers were answered.
The burn case ended up settling for $5 million
which we were able to secure for our client
due to the social media advertising.
You know, and I met with a firm a few months back,
and this is kind of the polar opposite,
who boasted that they had 1,750 likes
and had been posting on it every single day.
And I asked a simple question.
How many cases did it generate to justify that work?
They reluctantly said none.
But they'd thought that they were doing
what they needed to do, you know,
so that way they weren't left behind.
You know, when used incorrectly,
it can be a waste of time and resources
but when leveraged properly,
it can become a source for new cases.
So, something to think about,
you know?
How many of us, for instance,
have gone on a website on our phones
and it was terrible?
I know I personally can't click the back button quick enough
and the same is true of your potential clients.
One of the beautiful things about the mobile phone
is that people take it absolutely everywhere.
We used to utilize internet connections
to pinpoint and utilize targeting strategies,
like targeting injured victims in hospitals,
and the closest it would allow us to target
was approximately a two mile radius.
Now that everyone has a smartphone
and almost all of them are connected to the internet,
we can use cell phone triangulation
to get the targeting down to two meters.
That may sound a bit creepy
but think of it this way:
If you're a DUI attorney
and you want to target a stadium
that's playing some local event,
you clearly are gonna know
that there is gonna be drunk drivers leaving from there.
Well, you can target them.
Or let's say you know there are certain
drunk driving check points on a Friday
or Saturday night.
Well, target those areas too
and if you want to target courthouses or jails,
it's all possible to target.
You just need to work it into your strategy.
You know and one other thing of note is,
this is not up and coming.
I say this because we've already put it into use
and we're generating cases because of it
and you should too.
Be sure to check with your marketing agency
to ensure that they're using this technology
and the targeting of smartphones
and what have you with your advertising plan
to make sure that you're not losing clients
by not running it.
Let's talk a little bit about
the video advertising component
because few law firms have really taken advantage
of video marketing
to the full extent that they should or could, anyway.
Especially the ones who are actively running
TV commercials.
So last year,
22 million Americans cut their cable bills
in favor of streaming TV.
This giant migration of people can be targeted
with digital video advertising.
To make things even better,
you can target people unlike traditional TV ever could.
For instance, you can target specific demographics,
age groups,
geographic locations,
and if they don't want your whole video,
you don't even pay for it.
Plus, you can track how many people actually watched it.
It's common knowledge that a majority of people today
would rather watch something than read it.
It's why over three billion hours of video
are watched each month through YouTube alone.
Right?
Visual story telling allows potential customers
and clients of yours,
get a glimpse of your firms personality
and understand what differentiates you from the rest
and when done correctly,
it can be a memorable, lasting impression.
If you were, let's say,
to run YouTube advertising
in conjunction with TV advertising,
you would target an entirely new audience
and be able to track it.
We were able to get in front of eight million people
in one month with a campaign we ran
following a catastrophic event, unfortunately,
for a plaintiff campaign,
and it brought it an unbelievable amount of cases
and there was little competition.
Just something to think about.
You should get with your marketing company on this as well
and start thinking about how you can
include digital video advertising
as part of your overall marketing strategy as well.
This is probably one of the most important factors
I could discuss
and that your firm should absolutely be paying attention to.
Because it's where everything funnels down to.
Where is your money going
and what's working?
You need to have a balance of many different channels
that will funnel people to your firm.
These budgets need to be fluid
so you can change them to one side to another
and as often as they need to be changed
to maximize the return on investment.
The idea that you can set it and forget it
is not smart at all.
Yet, so many firms still continue to do it.
Every firm needs to have a custom plan
based on the types of cases that are being targeted
along with the nature of what type of clientele they are.
What works for some firms may not work for yours.
So you can't have a one size fits all strategy
and we preach that you must have
flexibility with your budget
and not get emotionally connected to any one thing.
The internet moves so quickly
so don't get yourself locked into something
that doesn't have this type of flexibility
or transparency.
The power of reviews is at an all time high.
If you're like most people,
and by most people I mean approximately 80% of people,
you put trust into online reviews.
Let me tell you a quick story
about a client I have in St. Louis.
Their firm goes after personal injury cases
with an emphasis on truck wreck cases
as well as any other catastrophic cases
and recently we generated a case
that ended up being a $4 million case.
Well when he handed the injured victim the settlement check,
he asked offhand,
"So why did you choose my firm?"
And I found this pretty interesting.
The client said without hesitation,
"Well, you have more positive Google reviews
"than anyone else.
"So if you do right by that many people,
"you'd probably do right by me."
You know, he told me this
and then he asked,
"So, you know, how do I get more reviews?"
Which is, of course,
what we all are seeking out.
Now, people are making the determination of
how good of an attorney you are
and how many clients you've helped
by the quantity
and the quality of your online reviews.
You know, we've surveyed thousands of people
here at Scorpion to verify this for our clients.
The unfortunate factor in this
is that they are very hard to get.
You need to have a system in place to help with this.
And by help with this I mean,
make sure it's easy for people to leave a review for you.
You know and you should be tracking them as well
so you're not caught off guard
if a bad review is left.
Sometimes I talk with a firm who has a horrible review up
and they've had it up for over a year
and the attorney didn't even know about it.
Just think about how much business
they may have lost because of it.
There's a sea of choices out there, you know,
regarding who to hire for your legal representation
so don't let a bad review
be the reason why you didn't get the call.
I would say that approximately 90% of law firms
I speak with, anecdotally,
don't do anything
with the reporting they receive on a monthly basis.
And the truth is,
it's not their fault.
The reports out there are tracking the volumes of things
such as a traffic, clicks,
page views, key words,
but they don't track what's most important:
New clients.
I met with a firm in January who has seven attorneys
and they spend a lot of money,
both online and offline,
and they were getting a lot of traffic,
clicks, and calls
but not a lot of cases.
The quality was terrible.
They didn't know what to do,
how to fix it,
or what to change.
One of the first questions I asked them was,
how many cases are you generating
tied to each of your marketing initiatives
and, most importantly, how do you track it?
They didn't have this in place
other than a Google Analytics account,
which clearly wasn't enough.
And we took them over,
we put them on our system,
and then we could track, you know,
what marketing was working and what wasn't
and the conversion jumped up by about 60%
in the first three months
and sustained that new level.
We took the money that was being wasted
and put it to where it was working
and six months later,
they had back-to-back highest number
of new case sign ups ever.
Tracking and reporting should
track and report information you need to know.
People don't even realize how much they're missing out on
because they don't know what data to collect
or what to do with it once they have it.
So you need to have or at least work with
an agency that has incredibly transparent tracking
and reporting tied to what matters most.
Case acquisition
and how those cases were generated.
The last thing I want to bring up
is how voice search is being used
and how important it is becoming.
Most law firms I talk to have not thought about it
and the growing number of people who are using this
and how they're using it,
and how it can be used to generate cases,
is definitely not on anyone's radar.
With the increased awareness of how terrible texting
and driving is,
or cars that have voice recognition built into them
and homes that are equipped with Alexa or Siri,
it's important to know that roughly
60 million people in the U.S. today
currently use voice search to find what they're looking for.
In terms of what we've just recently done,
we actually generated a case for a client
who actually used voice search
and what the person spoke into their phone was,
"Best attorneys to get me out of a second DUI near me."
Now I would never use those words
but remember, we're not our clients.
And here's the really important thing to think with:
Siri gave only one result.
Our client,
not a variety of law firms.
It pays to be one of the first to innovate
and think ahead.
Now I'd like to also share a few interesting facts
about voice search just to put this in perspective
of future thinking.
Speech recognition software
is three times as fast as typing
and has twenty percent less errors.
Meaning it's quicker and more efficient.
Right, so remember,
we live in the era of convenience.
40% of adults now use voice search at least once per day.
Right so this is not some future long-off thing, right?
By 2020, 50% of searches on a mobile device
will be done via voice search.
Food for thought,
that's less than two years away.
Now, quote-unquote,
"planning ahead,"
is rarely done with digital marketing strategies
because technology is evolving so quickly
and, more commonly,
the agency that you might be working with
isn't aware how to harness it yet.
Voice search also uses different criteria
than traditional text search
with, let's say,
Google, Bing, or Yahoo.
So make sure your marketing strategy is prepared
for what's clearly and imminently coming.
So, let's recap.
Understanding the shifts in digital media consumption,
right, and decreasing attention spans.
The many device sizes and types
and ideal client targeting
can dramatically improve
your internet marketing strategy today.
Paying attention to what matters most,
which is always going to be your potential clients
and what they need and want,
is what will align your marketing with what matters most,
which is signing new clients and cases.
There is more out there than, you know,
SEO and pay per click to get clients online.
So make sure you're aware of, you know,
what makes the most sense for your firm
and that the team or agency you're working with
is proactive, knowledgeable,
and has your best interest in mind.
Ensure you're prepared for the future
and how to take advantage of the new ways
to get in front of your ideal clients.
Innovate but do so intelligently
based on best practices.
These strategies aren't hard to incorporate
as long as you have the right partner.
If you're not thrilled with your current campaign
or, more importantly, what it's generating,
ask for a second opinion.
I know I would be happy to help.
Speaking of,
we'll be attending and presenting alongside Google
at the Annual AAJ conference on Monday, July 9th in Denver.
As Scorpion maintains the highest level partnership
with Google,
meaning they've vetted our systems,
technology, and track record,
they were eager to join us in educating law firms
of what they can and should be doing
to better connect with their potential clients online.
We will further elaborate on these topics there
that I've shared with you today
and go over a couple more.
An additional benefit is that you'll get to hear,
you know, Google's view on what best practices are.
We'd love to see you there if you're gonna attend.
And if you're not able to make that,
we typically attend most major legal conferences
so if you can't make this one be sure to let us know
if you're interested in setting up a meeting in the future.
So, now I'd like to open up the floor
to any questions you may have
and before we get into them I'd like to mention,
if you're interested in speaking one-on-one
about your practice
or if you have specific questions
pertaining to your firm's strategy,
I would be happy to set up a time to do so
and I've included my contact information,
as you see it,
to help us get in touch.
So let's see here, okay.
The first question I see is,
"How do you know where you should spend money online
"for a criminal defense practice
"that has only one attorney?"
Well the first step, I would say,
is making sure that you have a website
that really does a professional job of explaining
who you are and why you, you know?
You'll want to have a team
or agency who really cares about your best interests
and you want to make sure you have a plan
on how you can grow moving forward.
It's only getting more and more competitive.
You need to have a team,
systems, strategies,
that are making sure every dollar is counting
because if you are solo,
you need to make sure every dollar counts
and that way you obviously get in front
of your ideal clients in the most intelligent way possible,
right?
And one other thing I'd like to note is,
firms usually start with a cautious budget to make sure
they don't waste money on something that doesn't work.
This is just logical, right?
So make sure you know where every dollar is going.
Talk with experts who have a great understanding
of the legal industry
and who have helped firms similarly sized to yours succeed,
not just build them a website.
Scorpion, for instance,
helps everyone from solo practitioners
all the way up to large practices
but we don't treat them all the same.
They have different needs and wants.
Okay, so I hope that answered that question.
Here's the next question.
"Which is more important, SEO or pay per click?"
And this is a great question.
The truth is, they're both important
but for different reasons.
I don't know if you're aware or not
but over 60% of people today looking for an attorney
with the intention of hiring them tend to click on paid ads
but those don't always convert right away.
You want to have a balanced plan and strategy
so if they skip the the paid ads
and go to the organic areas,
you have them.
And if they're interested in seeing who's in the maps,
locally,
they find you there too.
Or if they want to click on a paid ad
because the message, you know,
perfectly resonates and matches what they're looking for,
you should be there too.
And with tracking and a team that cares,
you can absolutely win online by getting those cases.
Again, it comes back to,
give your potential clients exactly what they need,
make it abundantly clear
why you are in their best interests to call,
and that will absolutely set your best foot forward.
Let's see here.
Okay, well.
Those look like all the questions today.
I hope it was informative
and I wish you all the best.
Again, my contact information is here.
If you're gonna be at a AAJ I'd love to meet up with you
or maybe a future conference.
And I hope this helps round out the rest of 2018 for you
and set you up for a dynamite 2019.
Okay, thank you very much.