Episode 2 - Law Firm Partner Meeting Minutes Re Content

Following Episode 1

In the first of this series, Andrew literally begged his colleagues to create some content for their new website. Here is what happened when someone actually rose to the challenge…

One Month After The Last Partners Meeting

Email from Emma to Andrew

“Hi Andrew,

I hope you are well. I am delighted to say I have finally managed to come up with some content for the website, sorry it has taken so long. It is for a fairly niche area of my work and there is virtually nothing on the website about it currently. I did a search on Google and we don’t show up for it at all so hopefully this will help. This is a high value area and if we get any work from it I will be delighted! I will also look to do so more content when (and if) I ever get a free moment.

Many thanks

Emma”

Response from Andrew

“Hi Emma,

Superb! You are the first to come up with anything for the site so don’t feel bad. I will get this put on the site now and hopefully the enquiries will flood in. If you get any let me know please.

Cheers

Andrew”

Two months later –Partners Meeting

Andrew: “Now, the website again – Emma is the only one who has managed to produce content, well done Emma. Did you get the chance to write anymore?”

Emma: “I’m afraid not – and to be honest I wanted to see if the time I spent on the first article produced any returns. Can you tell me how it got on? I have been searching for it online but it never shows up prominently – although I did see it once on page 5 of the search results but who looks there?”

Andrew: “Oh right. I put it straight on to the News section of the site when you sent it over - I was hoping you were going to say you had picked up a few new clients. It is a concern that even you can’t find it online. We need to know somehow if we actually have had any business from that piece, or the site at all.”

Emma: “I thought you would know…”

Douglas: “Maybe then, Andrew, there isn’t any point in us spending time writing content if it doesn’t produce any return?”

Andrew: “Well, you haven’t wasted any of your time as you haven’t produced any! I am certain though that this is something we need to get right. Without wanting to sound ridiculous, winning business online is the future – think of how we source virtually everything we need these days.”

Frank: “ Well, all I can say is I often hear of other lawyers telling me their firm won great new business online, so I don’t see why we can’t.”

Andrew: “Yes, it is a headache really, we need to get professional on this or other firms will drive ahead, leaving us behind. Everything happens online these days. Anyway, for now can I just ask you all to again find the time and energy to come up with some content and I will see what I can do.”

Andrew, Brenda, Chris, Douglas, Emma, Frank (silence)

How to Kill a Content Creation Culture in Your Law Firm –Don’t have a Strategy

There is no point in banging the drum in your firm to get people to create content if you can’t then show them clearly that their time and effort was worthwhile. Creating the content is only part of the challenge (albeit a significant one for busy lawyers) - distribution is just as crucial. Burying good content in a rarely visited part of your website or placing it on a site that doesn’t generally present well to search engines (and therefore never shows prominently in search results) means that those who took the time to create content are unlikely to do so again.

Andrew should have been able to tell Emma about the impact her efforts had had – in terms of search result rankings, numbers of enquiries generated and the conversion rates from those enquiries. He would have known this through the content being placed within an effective distribution and reporting strategy.

The Strategic Distribution of Content

The content should have been placed on a site that was built in a way that search engines such as Google likes, in a format that Google likes. Then the content should have been distributed through multiple social channels and shared extensively – again a factor that Google values highly as it shows that people found the content to be of such value that they passed it on to other people. The strategy would then bring an audience to the content and would lead the audience to contact the firm with a view to instructing them.

If this had happened for Emma, and she had been shown the figures and profit that her content had created, she would produce more – and you can bet her colleagues would quickly do so too. And before you know it, a content culture would have been born.

Next time: the measuring and reporting part of the strategy –the good bit, that shows the profit you can create through an effective content strategy.

Contact Curated Media for Distribution Assistance

We help law firms win business online through assisting then to create content, distribute content and then measure and report on the profit generated by the content. Every part of the strategy has to be in place – contact us to get strategic.

If you want to know more about how important online content is then please read our Content Odyssey Guide.