WEEK

DESCRIPTION

1

New site goes live. 12 weeks start to finish, just like Conscious said it would be.

Registered to follow Conscious on Twitter as hadn’t already done so. Found them under @conscioussol and really enjoying reading their Tweets, very informative.

2

Start giving a “flyer” to anyone who comes to the office to encourage them to sign up to our email newsletters.

Updated our business cards to say “Register at our website” on the back of the cards, the Registration module allows us to profile our users so we know what areas of law (and thus our services) they are interested in.

We’re already getting clients registering at the website.

Start ‘lurking’ around groups on LinkedIn, oh and joined the Conscious Clients Group. Tidy up our own profiles based on those now on the new website which looks far more professional and ‘on message'.

3

Join a relevant LinkedIn group and start contributing to raise the firm's profile. Encourage other partners to identify active groups in which they can participate based on their areas of work and our geography.

4

Receive the monthly alert on the coming additions to the Private Client and Commercial Client Libraries.

Now have 50 people registered on the website.

Website snagging list closes and our first Account Review takes place, with the next one scheduled for the following quarter. Learn all about Google Analytics and set up some automated reports (weekly and monthly) to make sure we are always aware of how the site is performing.

5

In the Account Review last week my Account Manager (Sarah Joyce) mentioned the free social media training that Conscious are doing for their clients. Booked a training session in for next week. Apparently one of their clients has gained over £100,000 of new instructions since their training session as a result of using social media more effective…..here's hoping!

Updated our home page text using the Content Management System (CMS) with news of new starters. Did it from an Internet café having arrived with 15 minutes to spare for a client meeting at their office.

6

Newsletter registrations = 50. Which is not great to take the advice of my Conscious Account Manager and start a little internal competition to see which department can get the most registrations by getting email addresses when talking to clients and prospects. They also get permission from each person.

Now active in at least one LinkedIn group per work type practised at the firm.

7

Put up first survey on the website, use one of the latest news stories that Conscious added to our website today to identify something topical. It was really easy, just log in to the Admin area, select the survey and click the “Make Live” button.

Start our own Twitter feed, Conscious sign up to follow us on the first day. We have a follower!

8

Sent first client newsletter. Used the quarterly Conscious template as the basis then added some firm specific news. Selected “all clients” as the recipients from the newsletter list that we uploaded to the Conscious website.

The client newsletter promoted the recent survey. Logged on the next day and checked the statistics area and saw that we’d had 25 people respond to the survey. Plus a number of replies directly to the newsletter itself.

Content library alert received again.

Newsletter registrations = 125.

9

Start our own LinkedIn group, invite our commercial clients to join and we commit to ‘feeding’ the group regularly (daily until established) to ensure good activity levels.

My invitation for the annual Conscious Client Conference arrives by email. Apparently last year they had 40 attendees from firms of all sizes. I'm guessing that Alternative Business Structures will be high on the agenda this year.

10

Chloe (my daughter) is home from university for a couple of weeks so use her in the office to call clients as part of a “data protection” data cleaning exercise. Get their permission to use their email addresses for client newsletters.

Newsletter registrations = 200.

11

Upload a file of 300 email addresses to the email engine in preparation for next week’s client newsletter.

Now have 50 people following us on Twitter. Get Karen (Trainee in the Commercial Team) to start to contribute Tweets as well to keep us active.

12

As I’m not technically working today, I emailed updated home page text to Sally (our marketing assistant) with photo from last night’s charity dinner that the firm supported. Logged in to the admin area later in the day to check the text and having made one minor edit made it live. Updated Sally’s privileges so she can now make things live herself….i trust her and it saves me time. The CMS will alert me when things are made live anyway.

Sent out our second client newsletter. We wrote this one ourselves and sent it to all our registered users.

Newsletter registrations = 350. This leap can only be down the fact that a large proportion of the clients whose email addresses we loaded wished to continue receiving it.

Content library alert received again.

13

14

Was reviewing the weekly list of new registrations on the website and notice that the MD of ProTek, a local manufacturing company, who I’ve heard on the grapevine are thinking of relocating their factory out-of-town, has registered on the website. Send him an email advising him to look at the Director’s Briefing on finding new premises.

Newsletter registrations = 400.

15

Receive phone call from the MD of ProTek asking for a meeting about the lease on their new premises. At the meeting he tells me that a colleague of his had forwarded one of our client newsletters to him and he was impressed with the range of services offered through our website.

Go live with the Deals Database module. This is a recent addition to the Conscious service that will allow our clients to browse a selection of commercial deals available from both ourselves and other Conscious clients, provided greater choice and opportunities for us to pick up work on either side of a deal.

16

Receive a call from the MD of ProTek confirming our appointment as their law firm. I estimate the billable hours to be around 100-150 over the next year, the profit from this one transaction will cover the investment required for the Conscious service many times over.

Create a Deals Database Announcement Email and send it to all registered users on the website who have said they are interested in this subject (203 users).

Second Account Management review takes place. SEO strategy agreed to include a localised Google Pay Per Click campaign to target Family work. Also discuss that LinkedIn is contributing a significant amount of traffic to the website, share the stats with the other partners to encourage ongoing buy in. Google Analytics gives us great information and we are now becoming very familiar with it and can actually ask our Account Manager ‘good’ questions!

Content library alert received again.

Newsletter registrations = 450.

17

PPC campaign created, set weekly reviews internally and monthly with Conscious.

18

Reprinted the firm’s brochure. Reduced the number of pages from 8 to 4 and dedicated one whole page to the services we have available on the website.

150 Twitter followers now.

19

Start the selection process for a client relationship management (crm) software for the firm. SugarCRM from Conscious proves hard to beat, both on flexibility and price.

20

Updated home page text with news of our upcoming seminar on new probate legislation. Linked it to the item in the ConsciousLaw events module that Sally, our marketing assistant, updated yesterday. Did the update from home before leaving for client golf day.

Played with the MD of ProTek as part of a four-ball at our golf day, in front of another client and a prospect he said that our new website was a key part of his decision to engage us. He reiterated that he found the Director’s Briefing on finding new premises particularly useful.

It will be really useful when we can record things like ‘loves golf’ in SugarCRM. Sally is very excited about its implementation and is pushing for a decision.

Content library alert received again.

21

Get a request via the Debt Recovery Calculator to help recover an outstanding invoice of £5,000. The email says that he did not realise we provided this service until he’d looked at our site as a result of the last client newsletter. Said he loved the online tool to instruct us on the work.

First PPC review completed and activity levels are good. Agree to continue campaign for a further 3 months.

22

Probate seminar a great success, 50/50 split of attendees between clients and prospects.

Got another 40 email addresses for use for client newsletters.

Newsletter registrations = 550

23

Realise that only having Sally able to update the site is meaning that some areas although perfectly good, are not as up-to-date as I know they could be.

24

Decide to allow all fee earners to update their Staff Directory records and the Services pages for each of their areas. Being able to allow staff to update pages, but not make them live means that Sally can spend time reviewing, editing and making changes live, not having to write everything herself. Within a couple of days just about every page on the site has been brought up-to-date.

25

I hear there’s an unofficial competition between department heads to see who can keep their area of the site most up-to-date.

Content library alert received again.

26

Newsletter registrations = 750.