It’s an effort fuelled by the desire to show off expertise and build distinctive reputations in the market.
But competing for clients’ diminishing attention spans is every other law firm trying to do exactly the same thing. To take one current example, search for ‘Brexit legal impact’ and you’ll be faced with over 35 million results.
The truth is, in today’s market, much of your content will be drowning in a sea of sameness. That means you need to up your game, says Jason Ball, Founder of B2B marketing agency Considered Content, who advises asking five questions to scrutinise how well you’re doing.
- Do you sound human?
While we might want to believe that our potential clients are inspired to hire us based on stone-cold data, our specialisms, experience, successes or fee structures, humans are far more emotionally driven than rationally driven.
Remember, companies don’t hire your services, people do, and your language ought to reflect that. Take a look at Ty Doyle, a lawyer based in Houston, Texas, who answers legal questions daily on the U.S. Q&A website Quora. By breaking down tricky topics and using simple language, he has amassed 11.8 million views on his content, won multiple top writer awards on the site and generated huge interest in his legal expertise.
- Do you have a strategy for promotion?
Ensuring you reach the right people costs money, but making content no one ever sees costs more. That means investing in things like advertising campaigns, sponsored content or email marketing in order to reach specific audiences, regions and sectors. Hosting content on your own website isn’t good enough. Unless you’re in the Magic Circle, few people will be seeking out what you have to say, so you need to create content with a promotion and distribution strategy already in place to deliver the reach you need.
Everyone wants to be a thought leader, it’s why so many firms focus so much time on in-depth guides and reports. But many of these simply restate the same thoughts as other firms and media outlets.
- Do you really understand what clients care about?
When was the last time you actually sat down with a client and talked about their biggest concerns? Do you have a list of the questions most frequently asked by prospects? You should be creating high-quality lead-generating content that answers all those questions and draws on case studies of existing clients to build trust. The most successful firms will also be making content for every different stage in the buyer journey, from generating initial interest to closing new clients.
- Are you actually saying anything worthwhile?
Think about the last piece of content you read in full. What made you look at it? And what made you read to the end? Was it timely, did it have a news hook, why was it so utterly relevant and interesting to you?
Everyone wants to be a thought leader, it’s why so many firms focus so much time on in-depth guides and reports. But many of these simply restate the same thoughts as other firms and media outlets.
What they need to do is move the conversation along, offer new perspectives, take a stand. It’s this that makes the content more current and relevant, helping to lift firms out of the sea of sameness mentioned above. Often, this will mean producing less but better content, involving more people and asking tough questions about just how insightful and useful your proposed content can be.
Take a look at this web series on legal issues for challenger banks by Linklaters and Crafty Counsel. While the delivery could be far better – it’s jarringly scripted – the content is clearly useful (e.g. Episode 4: what to do if you are faced with a hacking attack).
- Are you skilled enough?
In copywriting, audio and video production, inexperience is glaringly obvious. These are skills that professionals honed over decades. Don’t put your content creation, which is also an exercise in brand and reputation building into the hands of someone who isn’t trained. Trusting this to juniors and interns will only reflect poorly on your firm. Ultimately, you should take it as seriously as you would any other client-facing aspect of your work.
Jason Ball is founder of B2B marketing agency Considered Content.
