I recently read a post on this topic that Passle provided as part of their Insiders Club series. It includes a recap of 2022 survey results from 100 general counsels (US and UK) and CMOs that caught my attention. Discussed in their CMO Series Live session, Passle explored how thought leadership shapes client perceptions and strengthens business relationships.  

The article re-confirmed for me the importance of including thought leadership efforts as part of an effective law firm marketing strategy. Regarding search engine rankings, timely, relevant content useful to prospective clients remains a viable avenue for lawyers to get themselves in front of the right audience at the right time. Yes, producing high-quality content is a significant time investment that may eat into the time you’d rather spend serving clients. However, as the survey suggests, roughly 80% of your prospects are looking to your online content to provide proof of experience and ability as part of their decision-making process when engaging a law firm. Therefore, I would argue that it is worth the investment.

Key Takeaways

1) No Single Type of Content Dominates – It Depends on Where Your Clients Are

Potential clients are more likely to consume content outside the office environment and outside working hours, so no single content type dominates. They could be on their phones while commuting or between meetings or skimming the headlines over breakfast on dedicated news channels or social media.

While podcasts and webinars came up as fan favourites, the data indicates that potential clients are all over the map when it comes to where they seek information about legal issues and potential legal services suppliers. This fits with the advice we consistently give clients, which is that if you are going to put in the effort to provide experience-based insights on a legal topic, leverage it everywhere you can. This is neatly summed up in the acronym COPE: Create Once. Publish Everywhere.

For example, suppose you produce an in-depth guide or white paper. In that case, think about ways to flag that material in other formats so prospective clients can find it in whatever format they use to educate themselves. So, what does that distribution web look like? At a minimum, it goes on your website under your resources with a blog pointing to its existence. If you’ve got a newsletter or news alert that goes out to clients, it can be featured there. Create social posts with links to the resource to leverage your firm’s social media channels, and don’t forget to share them on your own profiles. You should also be getting your colleagues to amplify your reach on their networks. On LinkedIn, you can alert your colleagues that you’ve got content for distribution by clicking the “Notify employees” button that appears when you publish a post on the company’s LinkedIn page. Side note: an easy way for all firm members to participate in marketing efforts is to ask them to “Reshare” content posted on the firm’s social channels. 

YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google and is Google-owned. So, suppose you’ve got a YouTube channel (and the resources to create short-form videos). In that case, you can create a video post to feature an introduction to the resource. You can repurpose that content on Instagram and Facebook as well. If you have written an in-depth blog post on a topic of interest to a key audience, consider doing a promoted post on Facebook to amplify your reach. Similarly, if you’ve invested in a podcast or webinar, that should be promoted on your website and social channels with an invitation to subscribe for future updates. 

A word about webinars and podcasts;  if you are asked to be a guest or participate in a webinar, find out if the presentation will be recorded and if you can use the content for your firm’s marketing. Sometimes, the answer will be no if it’s a paid event. Still, anytime you present, it’s a missed opportunity if you don’t ensure the event is recorded and use the footage (assuming the subject is appropriate and you have the necessary permissions). 

2) Content Curation is Not Enough

Simply filtering and reporting on practice area news is not enough. Almost 70% of the people surveyed indicated that you need to go beyond stating “this is what’s happening” and move to “and this is why it matters with specifics about who it matters to and why.” As lawyers, you are selling your knowledge and advocacy. Telling prospective clients why a news item or legal development is important, why they need to pay attention, and any steps they can or should take effectively demonstrates your subject matter expertise.

3) Regularly Review and Update Website Content

Website content is not a one-and-done proposition. Leaving aside “evergreen content” (content that remains relevant regardless of changes to the legal landscape), scheduling regular pruning or updating stale content is a wise move. The law constantly evolves, so there is ample room for updating and refreshing content. This particular survey confirmed (no surprise to us) that prospective clients DO look at a firm’s website before making decisions about engagement (95% of those surveyed), AND many people return to websites looking for fresh content. At a minimum, you should be reviewing your website quarterly to update or remove stale content. 

When removing or updating content, it is also important to do so in a way that does not negatively impact your results on search engines. That means taking steps like putting in 301 redirects from old content links to updated content and sometimes marking old content as deleted permanently so that search engines know they do need to keep looking for it to index. This is all technical SEO that a marketing partner can help you with.

4) Content Should Show Expertise and Answer Questions

Content should be relevant and timely for your target audience, written by a subject matter expert, including sources where appropriate, provide actionable steps or a call to action, and preferably answer at least one or two questions or address a typical pain point.

Good quality content should provide insights based on your experience AND give an opinion. That does not mean talking about client matters, which is, of course, a big no, no without client permission. Nor does it mean providing a formal legal opinion; instead, it means offering your opinion on what a particular development may mean for clients in a given situation or vertical. For example, you might use a format like: “Clients in X situation need to be aware of this change or new development (describe) because it means a shift in compliance requirements that will require you to review Y and implement Z or face consequences 1, 2 or 3.”

This approach to content signals to search engines (like Google) that you are a trusted source of information that is more likely to align with user search intent which is the flavour du jour in search given the rise of AI overviews (a topic for another day). Aligning content with user search intent helps with page rank on search (where your content appears in search results) and signals to prospective clients that you have the expertise and ability to help them with whatever issue or challenge they are facing. 

Final Thoughts on Making it Easier

There are ways to make the content development process easier for your team. As a starting point, you can employ basic templates that help structure content so that it is designed to answer questions and align with user search intent. You can also implement a standardized (but adaptable) process for repurposing content for distribution on all channels the firm has available to it. You can also choose to harness your bench strength and spread the work of content development across your team so that no one person carries the whole load unless that is something they wish to do as their contribution to the firm’s business development efforts. It helps if your firm is prepared to acknowledge the time and effort spent on content marketing as a portion of billable hours targets. 

Giving your team support and encouragement to learn how to harness content marketing is a valuable business development skill that ultimately benefits the firm. Therefore, it’s worth integrating into a firm’s long-term strategic plan. If you are (wisely) investing in your people, part of that is helping them learn “how” to do their own business development, ultimately benefiting everyone at the firm.

Play to your team’s strengths. Some people may already be active on LinkedIn and may be happy to take on distributing firm content across their own networks. Similarly, if you’ve got people already doing webinars and presentations, that can easily be morphed into their contribution to the firm’s thought leadership through social posts to drive traffic to that material. If you need help with sorting out how to tackle a thought leadership strategy or ideas on how you can make the most out of what you are already doing, we invite you to get in touch.