As published by Legal Marketing Association’s Strategies here …
Share, collaborate and give credit where credit is due.
This article aligns with the focus of the July/August issue of Strategies magazine: technology.
The other day I hosted a webinar. It didn’t go well.
We didn’t select one of the platforms typically used by our industry. “Let’s save costs,” we thought. “We can do this ourselves,” we thought. So, we used a subscription for a service we already had. We scheduled it. We did a “dry run” in our media room. Everything seemed to being working OK.
Day of webinar, with 60 people on the line, we launched our new quarterly web series. There was lots of energy. Lawyers were pumped. Rockin’ and rollin’. Twenty minutes later, a colleague popped her head in the conference room, gesticulated wildly toward her ears, and hissed, “We can’t hear you.” White hot panic ensued.
We started over. Still couldn’t be heard. Suddenly, we couldn’t see our slides either. Disconnected. Restarted. Suddenly all was right, but only for the 20 people who inexplicably remained on the line. Blessedly, my attorneys were game to re-record the whole thing offline, which we then posted on our website — and a new podcast was born.
I’m 20-plus years into this career. I think I know what I’m doing, but I often don’t know what I’m doing. It can happen to any of us. We want to please too many people; we’re told to keep costs low, don’t commit to any product long term, pilot something new — you can figure anything out, until you can’t.
When You Can’t Be All Things to Your Firm
This brings me to my most salient piece of advice for the small-firm marketer with finite resources (human, financial, technological): It may seem counterintuitive, but you must budget for consulting advice, and you must push back if your firm is unwilling to let you enlist the virtual aid of experts on areas where you may be deficient. It’s tempting to try to be all things to your firm, but you can’t. You will fail, and when you fail they fail.
It is crucial to my success to stay in contact with fellow legal marketers as well as service providers in our industry. You need to stay on top of the latest and greatest in technology solutions, measurement, outreach, etc., and, for me, maintaining my professional network is a great way to do so. I have some consultants I’ve known personally and professionally for years ― people I met at my very first LMA conference. Consequently, I trust their counsel.
Know what you don’t know, and be transparent about that. Part of your value to your respective organizations may be in giving them access to consultants and resources you have gathered over the years. For me, I lean heavily on CRM, web/digital and measurement experts, and, as appropriate, have them take on engagements with the firm.
First Time’s the Charm
When you are pushing your firm to make that big expenditure (for them), you need to articulate how important it is to do things correctly the first time. What are those old sayings? Don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Measure twice, cut once. Don’t cut your nose off to spite your face. (Shudder. That last one is particularly grim.)
You must quantify your impact. Social media and digital give us a host of great leading metrics to use around awareness and engagement (e.g., reach, readability, downloads). We can also target industry groups now in very sophisticated ways. When working with attorneys, you need to show immediate impact ― whether by helping them connect with media and PR opportunities or through networking events, and then mapping out strategies for follow-up, codifying the business development steps and pipeline.
It’s not always evident that business development is a long game, so you have to help them see the short-term gains on the way to the larger outcome. If you have made a strategic bet on technology (e.g., marketing automation, competitive intelligence) to achieve those gains, celebrate each and every gain — no matter how small — and link it back to that investment.
That is how you will free up capital for your next play. And, if you can integrate with your accounting team via a CRM system (sometimes easier said than done), all the better. In an ideal environment, you should be tracking your marketing activities and then seeing what, if any, revenue impact they may be having and adjust as needed.
- The digital revolution is changing the way we connect with the consumer and how we impact their decision-making processes dramatically. Duh. We can be increasingly targeted and can measure our impact in more granular ways. Be aware of how you are budgeting your dollars, and don’t be left behind because decision-makers in your firm may remain smitten with antiquated techniques that once worked for them. Both from a talent retention and a client acquisition perspective, you need to adapt and adapt quickly.
- We are seeing an increasing diversification and consolidation of the traditional chief marketing officer role. Duh again. We are seeing chief experience officers, engagement execs, digital leaders, tech experts and operational leads spin out of and take over the marketing space. Keep your skills up-to-date and diversify, and don’t focus on tactics at the expense of strategy. At the end of the day, we are here to drive awareness and business. As a result, we can find ourselves at the table for interesting conversations. Avail yourself of the opportunities. Don’t be linear about your work nor provincial/territorial in your thinking.
- Dollars will always be a challenge. Duh… big time. No one wants to spend money on marketing, but they want amazing results. You can’t really blame leaders for that. Marketing can be very expensive and frustratingly nebulous in its impact, so operate lean. Cut programs that aren’t working before others cut them on your behalf. Find ways to leverage digital to shrink your own budget and demonstrate that you can achieve significant outcomes for less. That may seem counterintuitive as marketers can sometimes spiral into empire building as a means to seem more significant or powerful within an organization. Show your value through outcomes, not turf or budget size.
Lean on Collective Intelligence
Digital, digital, digital. Acquiring technology to increase targeting. Boosting signal. Digital dissemination vehicles. Marketing automation.
There are so many great tools out there that your head will spin trying to understand them all. Don’t try. Find people who are doing that work ― sifting the wheat from the chaff. Tell them your needs, seek their counsel and follow their advice. Don’t be afraid to spend some money on people who are doing the research you may not have the bandwidth or expertise to accomplish yourself.
Some days I feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown. Others I feel like I’ve won the lottery. I love being a solo marketer. I love the work I do when I can introduce my attorneys to a new tool that will make their lives easier, help them reach a broader audience and find their voices. But I can’t do it alone. The best “tech” I can acquire is the collective intelligence of consultants and colleagues who have solved these problems before me, who know what works (and what doesn’t) and who can help me make the case for change. Share, collaborate and give credit where credit is due. That’s how you win the game.
Interested in learning more about marketing technology? Be sure to check out the July/August issue of LMA’s Strategies magazine.
Roy Sexton is the director of marketing for Kerr Russell. His background includes significant experience in both the legal and healthcare industries. He recently returned to a law firm environment, assuming the role of director of marketing at Kerr Russell after a stint as regional marketing director of a large health system. He is treasurer-elect for the 2018 LMA Midwest Regional Governing Board.
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Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
Last night we saw William Shatner. Yes, THAT William Shatner. Priceline Negotiator. Denny Crane. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Captain Kirk. Cringe-worthy purveyor of spoken word psychedelia. He offered his one-man show Shatner’s World … We Just Live In It (originally presented in a limited run at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre) at Motor City Casino’s SoundBoard venue.
Plus, I’ve always found Shatner a rather desperate presence, sharing the same kind of icky balsa wood machismo that plagued contemporaries like Burt Reynolds, Robert Conrad, and Lee Majors throughout the 70s and 80s. Regardless, he’s sustained an acting career across stage and screen for sixty years; he’s a best-selling author; and he’s an icon. That is something to celebrate; yet, all that “Shatnerism” gets in the way of respecting his work and always has.
(My favorite Shatner moment remains The Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” wherein his character is convinced that gremlins – which only he can see – are dismantling a plane in mid-flight. If there ever was a place for Shatner’s hyperventilating hyperbole and pop-eyed claustrophobia, it was the black-and-white world of Rod Serling.)
His sentimental, albeit self-aggrandizing, descriptions of his early days in the entertainment industry are captivating, damn funny, and, I suspect, patently false: he worked with good buddy Christopher Plummer (who knew?) at Stratford (Canada), and supposedly saved the day once as Plummer’s understudy in Henry V; he, in his estimation, single-handedly turned Broadway bomb The World of Suzie Wong into a long-running comic hit; he, according to Shatner, gave an Emmy-caliber performance in an unnamed Playhouse 90 episode until legendary co-star Lon Chaney, Jr., started rattling off stage directions as if they were dialogue; Shatner discovered the glories of leadership and horsemanship starring as Alexander the Great (!) in a film none of us had ever heard of.
As Shatner’s World proceeds into its second hour, the focus grows more diffuse and the self-celebration harder to take. He glosses over his 
Finally, the aspect of Shatner’s life that surprised and troubled me most was (is) Shatner’s adoration of animals. Complete shock to me. Images of Shatner with his beloved dogs, horses, and other creatures fill his slide show and his repartee, and the joy in his eyes is palpable. He speaks meaningfully about the special language and kinship one can only feel with and for animals and how they can tell us all we need to know if we’d only listen. Yet, he then talks about how he “studs” his prize pets (equine and canine) to this day, going into great detail about all the awards he’s received and money he has made from the practice. He also relays a lengthy anecdote about the “horse of a lifetime” – his spirit animal, if you will – whose existence he ruined by breeding, the creature consigned to unending days of isolation and misery as a result. Shatner seems to indicate deep regret, and he expresses hope that the horse, in his final moments, forgave Shatner; but he follows this heartbreaking moment by regaling us with tales of the horse’s award-winning progeny.
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Thanks to Gail Lamarche and the 
You can’t just gather up an army of digital acolytes and hope something magical happens in order to promote your service or to achieve your desired business outcomes. You have to engage these people in meaningful ways that add value to their daily lives. As in life, a social media relationship is a transaction. It can be small – making sure you acknowledge a client/co-worker/colleague birthday – or big – writing a killer blog post that gives great analysis on a developing legislative issue or case victory. 
Roy earned his Bachelor’s degree from 
