This document summarizes an expert presentation on ethical digital marketing strategies for law firms practicing social security disability law. It discusses developing a law firm website and using content marketing tactics like blogging, email marketing, and social media. It also covers paid search advertising, video marketing, and analyzing digital marketing metrics. The presentation emphasizes using these strategies to help the disabled community access legal services online.
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Digital Marketing for Social Security Disability Cases
1. Ethical Digital Marketing for
Social Security Disability
AAJ Social Security Success
Seminar
January 29-30, 2015
Miami, Florida
Stacey Burke
Attorney/Owner
415 Westheimer, Suite 209A
Houston, Texas 77006
Office (713) 714-8446
Fax (877) 314-9990
stacey@staceyeburke.com
www.staceyeburke.com
2. Ethical Methods of Digital Acquisition for
Social Security Disability
• Digital Content Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Paid Search Advertising
• Social Media Marketing
• Video Marketing
www.staceyeburke.com
4. Website Design: Most Important Factors
• Analytics
• Architecture and content management system
• Clear, easy-to-use navigation
• Compatibility across browsers, devices, and platforms (go responsive!)
• Color scheme
– Color communicates the temperament of your brand
• Establish your digital identity
• Ethics
• Format content for easy scanning (bullet points, headers)
• Go visual, use images and video
• Page load time
– 40% of website visitors leave pages that take more than 3 seconds to load
• Page layout
– Web users read left to right and in an F shaped pattern
www.staceyeburke.com
6. Law Firm Website Traffic: The Basics
1. Drive traffic to your
website via a variety of
methods mapped out in
a comprehensive
marketing strategy.
2. Add content to your
website on a regular
basis, including news,
case results, speaking
engagements,
whitepapers, awards,
etc.
www.staceyeburke.com
8. Blogs Should Not Be Self-Promotional
• If all you do with your blogging
is focus on being self-
promotional, don’t do it
• Be helpful – provide useful
information and it will be read
and shared
• Not all blogs should end with
the same CTA of call us, we are
the best. Some CTAs can be
contact your congressman,
watch for these side effects if
you are on this medication, etc.
www.staceyeburke.com
9. Editorial Calendars Organize Your Content
• What is an editorial calendar and why should you use one?
– Ensures you touch on all important topics regularly
– Includes holidays, seasons, and events
– Allows an organized shuffle of authorship across the firm by date
so everyone has a defined time to contribute and a topic
• How to get started – blog 2x/week, define your target audience, select
keywords for optimization, set word count, and determine how you
will promote the piece.
www.staceyeburke.com
11. Email Marketing Quick Facts
• 50 million people will check email at least 5 times
today
• Email reaches 93% of internet users
• Response rates to email are 10x greater than
direct mail
• Adults account for at least 87% of all U.S. email
users
• There are at least 216.6 million U.S. email users
• Two out of three people in the U.S. use email
• Use an ESP for its greater deliverability and
“white list” status
www.staceyeburke.com
12. Email Marketing/CRM
Email Marketing
• Make your existing contacts work for you
– database mining.
• If you don’t tell your contacts what you
are working on, who will?
• Announce firm news
• Instantly blast your entire hit list
• Throw parties and host events
• Judicial and political fundraising
Customer Relationship Management
• A CRM system allows businesses to
manage business relationships and the
data and information associated with
them
• Reporting and analysis are centralized
and streamlined
• All data is captured in a singular
clearinghouse for both conflicts checking
and remarketing
www.staceyeburke.com
13. The CAN-SPAM Act: Overview
• Governs “any electronic mail message the primary
purpose of which is the commercial advertisement
or promotion of a commercial product or service”
• Do not use false or misleading header information or
deceptive subject lines
• Identify your messages as advertisements
• Give recipients the ability to OPT-OUT
• Each separate email violation is subject to penalties
of $16,000
www.staceyeburke.com
18. Social Media & Your Law Firm Website
• Include social sharing functionality on your blog
and throughout your website
• Include links to all of your social media channels
in the footer of your website and/or in another
design element such as a right column
www.staceyeburke.com
19. Social Media Marketing:
Which Channels are Most Important
• Facebook
– 829 million people log onto Facebook each day
– Highest traffic occurs midweek between 1-3pm
– Engagement is 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays
• Twitter
– 100 million daily active users of 1 billion registered users, but only 550
million of those have ever sent a tweet
• LinkedIn
– 100 million American users, 40% check in daily
– Your profile is 11x more likely to be viewed if you include a photograph
– Maintaining professional relationships, an online resume
• YouTube
– More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
– 323 days of YouTube video are watched every hour on Facebook
– Advertisers spent $5.6 billion on YouTube in one year
20. Social Media “Set it and Forget it”
• DESIGN/BRANDING
– You are, at least in a digital consumer’s eyes, what they see
online
• ETHICS
– Failure to timely respond to client communications
• MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
– Missing referrals
– Missed media inquiries
• REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
– Bad feedback left unaddressed in public
• BASIC MANNERS
– Connection requests left unanswered can be perceived as rude
www.staceyeburke.com
21. Social Media: Monitoring and Metrics
• Law firms should track metrics for social media just as they would for any
other marketing expenditure.
• Social media metrics can include:
– Audience Growth/Overall Reach
– Engagement
– Visits to Websites
– Conversions
– Influence
www.staceyeburke.com
23. Why Video?
• Video highlights the attorney, not just the brand.
• Video delivers ideas and positions with more
authority and emotional impact.
• Videos explain complex information simply.
• Video distribution is mostly free.
• Video is in high demand, and others will recommend
and share it.
• Video is accessible to lawyers (inexpensive to make)
and users (hearing and visually impaired, etc.)
www.staceyeburke.com
24. How to Do Video
• Include lawyers from your firm and testimonials from clients and/or others.
• If you have a solo or small practice, you will be the featured “talking head” of your firm
in online video.
• If you are part of a larger firm, I recommend shooting for diversity within your video
subjects. You should include racial, gender, age, and ethnic diversity whenever possible
amongst your lawyers so that you relate to a broader audience online.
• Research and prepare a script in advance based upon your website site map and Google
Analytics data.
• The main video on a website should not last longer than two to three minutes.
• The interior page videos should last 60-90 seconds.
• You should lead in with slides including the firm logo and/or contact details
• Break up the talking head content with photos, animation, or slides with relevant data
points.
• Always be sure to use “supers” to announce who is speaking and what their position is,
along with the law firm name (in the law firm’s logo colors of course).
www.staceyeburke.com
26. Monitor Your Metrics and Return on Investment
• All of your websites must have active, current
Google Analytics code and be linked to Google
Webmaster Tools
• You should track social media Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs)
• You should continually assess and track your
acquisition costs
• You must conduct monthly, quarterly, and/or
yearly reviews of your marketing metrics to
adjust expenditures
www.staceyeburke.com
28. Digital is the Future for Social Security Disability
• Be proactive to counter eventual governmental
technological improvements – don’t get
automated out of your practice area
• The disabled community is very active online, as
it is easy for them to access from home, from a
medical facility, or on a mobile device. It is
important to be present in a meaningful way.
• My PowerPoint presentations:
SlideShare.net/StaceyBurke
www.staceyeburke.com
Make sure that your firm has a presence so that you look legitimate to searchers but be careful because everyone sees it (RA and potential clients and media and opposing counsel) – online legitimacy, the more places you exist, the more real you are to searchers and to search engines