Summer? What summer? Great weather for ducks etc etc. It's not been great has it. Just before I get in to the meat of my newsletter let me just tell you a story about why I think email newsletters like this are so effective.
In December 2004 I did my third ever "sales call" on a law firm to discuss our services. As it turns out what we were then offering was not really what they needed, so nothing happened. However, I asked if I could stay in touch by sending our email newsletter. So, in July 2008 another partner from said firm then phoned up and said now they needed the kind of help we can offer. We prepared a proposal, talked them through it and hey presto we have a new client for a re-brand and new website project.
Now, when I tell these stories, I can see from the look in some people's eyes that they think I am making them up, so here's some kind of proof if you want it. I have taken a screen print of the contact history for this particular client. This screenshot will show you from January 2006 to August 2008. As you can see all I did in this time was send them two direct mail letters and 13 email newsletters. As you can see, it does work! You've just got to be in it for the long term. If you need help with your email marketing campaigns, we can help.
I hope you enjoy the selection of newsletter articles we have collected for you this month. If there's anything I should know about, please do let me know.
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Regs….David.
01173250200
In this issue:
- Getting to No.1 in Google tips booklet - win an iPod Touch
- Business Development Strategies Report
- The importance of getting a name right
- Sharing the love (content) with your clients!
- Link Building - Does it work? Boy, does it work!
- Customer satisfaction vs. customer loyalty
- Conscious on The Road
- The Funny Bit at the End - Take Your Dog to Work Day
Getting to No.1 in Google - new tips booklet - win an iPod Touch
We are pleased to announce the online release of our latest tips booklet "24 Insider Tips to get your Law Firm's Website No.1 in Google." You can download the PDF copy from our website now, or we can send you a paper copy as soon as our printers get their fingers out!
Everyone who downloads the PDF before 5pm on Friday 5 September will go into a draw to win an 8GB iPod Touch (RRP £199).
Business Development Strategies Report
I have seen a preview copy of a new report from ARK Group aimed at senior and managing partners, heads of departments, business development directors, practice managers and those responsible for the ongoing profitability of their law firm. Worth a look for those firms who are looking to maximise their BD plans.
Contact Adam Scrimshire on 020 8785 5900 or ascrimshire@ark-group.com and quote AS-D1a to get this report for £195 (a discount of £100 off the full price). Could be the best £200 you spend in a tight market!
The importance of getting a name right
One of my clients sent me an email the other day. My client (Boys & Maughan) had been approached by a search engine optimisation firm (who may well have approached you as well). The firm did something quite clever, which was they ran a report showing that how badly my client did for a particular search phrase i.e. "solicitor margate". Bearing in mind this is where my client is based this could have made Conscious look pretty bad! Particularly as we consistently get clients into the top five on Google for such a phrase 75% of the time.
However, where this other firm let themselves down, was that they spelt the client's website address wrong, so they were reporting on the wrong URL. Well it made me laugh anyway!! Have a look at the report they sent.
Sharing the love (content) with your clients!
Here's an idea. If you have been following what we've been saying for a couple of years now then you will have have a nice set of current legal awareness articles/news content on your website.
So how about sharing this content with your clients? If you have commercial clients who have an intranet, why not offer them an RSS feed of your content into their intranet. This would mean you would get your name on their intranet and it would hopefully mean their staff will click through to your website.
In case you are a new reader of this newsletter and wonder why you should have up-to-date legal content on your website, then here's why. We know for a fact that this increases the "time spent on site" by visitors, and increases the "number of pages viewed per visit" plus helps the search engines form a more positive view of your website.
Link Building - Does it work? Boy, does it work!
In the last newsletter I mentioned our new SEO service based around increasing the number of inbound links to your website to improve your search engine ranking i.e. improving what is known as your "Link Popularity".
Link Popularity can be defined as "the measure of the number of quality internal and external links pointing to a particular website". We've just finished one project for a client using this technique and for a very competitive phrase. I'm not at liberty to share the full details but the phrase was along the lines of "(service name) lawyer" not something uncompetitive like "divorce solicitor brighton" (no offence to anyone in Brighton!).
As a direct result of the link building we did, we improved the client's search engine ranking from No. 54 (i.e. nowhere) to No. 3. Not bad eh! You can read more about this service on our website, which also has pricing information.
Customer satisfaction vs. customer loyalty
There is an interesting distinction between these two phrases. What do you understand to be the differences between the two, i.e. a "satisfied" customer versus a "loyal" customer. There is a US author that I like to read (see Gilroy's Reading List below) called Jeffrey Gittomer. I came across this article of his the other day giving his view on the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
Conscious on The Road
We are out and about a fair bit over the next couple of months. You'll find us at the following events where we are either presenting or attending :-
- 3-Sep - Seminar - CRM – The truth in professional services in 2008 - PM Forum (London)
- 9-Sep - Seminar - 29 Killer Marketing Ideas - 2020 (London)
- 10-Sep - Seminar - 29 Killer Marketing Ideas - 2020 (Birmingham)
- 11-Sep - Conference - Adding Value: Marketing through Clients - PM Forum (London)
- 18-Sep - Seminar - Is your price right? - PM Forum (Bristol)
The Funny Bit at the End - Take Your Dog to Work Day
I just wanted to bring this to your attention. Take Your Dog to Work Day is a fundraising event run by Blue Cross. I have a six year old black Labrador called Callie who comes to the office once a week or so. So she will be in attendance on the 17 September! In fact, you'll be able to watch her as on that date we are going to have the "CallieCam" i.e. a webcam broadcasting her movements during the day onto our website!
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