Our friends over at The Lawyerist have a great post today courtesy of Allison Shields – 7 Simple Online Mistakes Lawyers Make.
- Using an AOL, Hotmail or Yahoo! Email address (a domain name will cost you $10 per year. Make the investment.)
- Not Writing for Real People (drop the legalese lawyers … even your lawyer clients don’t like to read it. Oh, and use bullet points, or numbered lists. People tend to focus on those.)
- Focusing your website or blog on YOU rather than your audience (clients should see themselves and their problems in your materials)
- Overselling (saw a blog recently … last five posts were all about a seminar they were hosting. Ugh. Where’s the useful information? Show you value and experience in the information that you’re sharing)
- Expecting results without participation (Can’t agree more! Goes back to know, like, trust )
- Boring, resume-style profile or bio (you don’t have to get crazy here, but my formula is: 1) What do you do? 2) Who do you do it for? 3) What types of problems do you resolve and how?? 4) Write for the business that you want. 5) Write so that the potential client see themselves, sees their problems, and sees that YOU have the solution)
- Being invisible online. (If you’re Googled and the search results are zero, do you exist? Can you be trusted?? Better yet, why should anyone call you or hire you?)
I’ll add one more, which I think is the most important:
The world of business has changed, and it is continuing to evolve. The rules are no longer set, and, in fact, they will most likely remain fluid year after year. Having a listing in X-directory is no longer a marketing campaign, and you shouldn’t be spending $37,000 to do it, because that’s what you’ve done year after year. Now is the time to throw out that marketing plan formula that you never really looked at anyway, and see how you can modernize your marketing and business development efforts, taking advantage of the new tools that are readily available to you.