Martindale Hubbell Connected - Lawyer Social Networking

I signed up for a free account with Martindale Hubbell's Connected Web Site today. I like the concept and think it has good potential. My first reaction was "great, just what we need, yet another social networking site." However, after exploring it and thinking through the various opportunities, I think that this new LexisNexis product definitely has strong potential to develop into a valuable niche tool.

LexisNexis has really taken considerable steps to become a highly customer centric organization through both acquisitions and internal process enhancements. As a result, I am pretty confident that MH Connected, or any product and service they introduce into the marketplace has been well researched and designed to maximize end user value.

LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are not conducive to the identification and selection of lawyers, because they do not have the type of information that LexisNexis stores in its databases. The available areas of practice on Martindale are what make it all happen. It enables a corporate executive in Memphis to immediately link up with an M&A lawyer in Buenos Aires.

There will be tremendous value in being able to display exceptional client recommendations via this site. A corporate general counsel who may be using one defense law firm, may opt for another upon finding out that two close peers are using another and are extremely satisfied by the results.

Plaintiff's firms and other consumer-oriented practitioners will not be able to generate new business directly using the service, however, may realize considerable benefit in using it to develop a strong referral network that can lead to increased customers.

The one thing to remember is the transparency that the Internet is enabling. If you are a decent, hard working, honest and respectable individual, the Internet can be your best friend. If you are a professional shyster, it will catch up to you and you will not be able to hide. Think of it as a magnifying glass on your reputation and act accordingly.

Visit LitigatorEdge.com to reduce lead Internet Marketing lead generation costs.

Law Firm Marketing - No room for 2nd best

If your SEO program is not successful in placing your law firm in the #1 position for Google natural search results, you lose. Statistics show that close to half the clickthroughs go to the top position. Go below the top 3 and your traffic becomes meaningless and your program is not worth the cost.

Even is an SEO firm can get you up there, can they keep you up there? Doing so takes time and resource investments. Ultimately, you will not be able to sustain over the long haul, when your competition is paying 1/3 to 1/2 the fees for comparable SEO efforts. Today I am pitching you on why you should trust LitigatorEdge with your business. In several years, law firms and legal marketers that treat SEO like a professional service will begin to understand why getting the greatest value for your dollar is what ultimately drives SEO impact.

Put all your doubts out of your mind for 5 minutes and call me, or e-mail me and I will call you and ask me to explain in detail why LitigatorEdge is a better value to your law firm than any other Internet marketing vendor in the vertical. You are a lawyer and I am sure you are very persuasive. If you disagree with anything I say, I welcome a debate as to why using another Internet marketing firm, or handling online marketing in-house makes more financial sense for your law firm's bottom line.

LitigatorEdge - Lawyer Internet Marketing

Offshoring: Necessity, not Choice

No one enjoys offshoring. It involves inconvenient change, can be challenging to manage and has a number of inherent risks. Nevertheless, the competitive advantages gained in the form of cost-savings and increased productivity cannot be ignored.

Let's imagine two identical competing plaintiff's law firms, each with $2.5 Million in annual revenues, $2.0 Million in expenses, including a marketing budget of $225,000.

Now, envision this: one firm saves $200,000 a year in operating expenses by offshoring redundant legal support functions, as well as some document production and research. They reallocate the entire amount to marketing. This firm now has a $425,000 annual marketing budget.

Normally, the firm would dedicate 20% of the marketing budget to online marketing ($85,000 of the new budget of $425,000). The firm has also offshored part of its online marketing efforts, so instead of spending $85,000, they are now spending $40,000 for the same results. The firm chooses to reinvest the $45,000 in savings and more than double its online marketing investment. The end result is the marketing budget equivalent of $470,000, versus the original $225,000 budget.

Offshoring is here. Your competition is hoping you find it too inconvenient to act.

Announcing LitigatorEdge Business Launch

The Internet is the great equalizer. Large plaintiff's law firms with huge networks and equally large budgets will find it increasingly more challenging to dominate lead generation. Blogs, social networking and strategic pay per click and search engine optimization campaigns are helping progressive firms capture a growing share of Internet lead traffic. Armies of smaller and more nimble firms will inevitably steal leads away, by being more strategic about their approach to online marketing.

LitigatorEdge was founded to help its clients stay ahead of the curve through cost-effective, high caliber online marketing capabilities. We are currently only accepting up to 5 law firm clients per metro area, due to competing keyword interests, but may accept additional firms that are only looking to target a niche case type or geographical location.

For more information please visit www.litigatoredge.com

Take Hype in Stride

The article below supports the notion that Twitter is still teetering despite the recent surge in press coverage. I am following it closely, but think that Twitter's broad market applicability may be limited, this is why I have not been in too much of a hurry to grow my own contact list. I have found that much of the information shared on Twitter is not valuable and that many of the individuals who are sharing valuable information with peers have been unsuccessful at monetizing their efforts.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090429/tc_nm/us_twitter_6

Twitter started off as a means for techies to send one another brief messages. I can certainly see how celebrities would leverage it to stay in touch with their fan base, or a company sending periodic links to coupons, but it is also easy to see how one would quickly become averse to dozens of "industry experts" competiting for your mind share, sending hourly news flashes of "pertinent" information. After a while, this would cause many individuals to tune out.

People like to look at friends' photos and find out what they are up to. This is why Facebook works. LinkedIn works because it has direct practical, networking application. The jury is still out on Twitter...

Visionary application, or soon to be pop culture has-been? To be continued...

Getting Started with Online Marketing

How do you decide what type of online marketing, if any, is right for your firm, or business?

The first two things you should look at are: (1) who your target customer is, and (2) how would they normally seek out your product or service. If the answer to #1 is a consumer, chances are pretty good that you would stand to benefit considerably from some form of proactive online marketing. Search engine optimization and pay per click are among the most common methods used to reach consumers and should generally be explored before any other types of online marketing. Content and link building are typically tactics that are directly tied to improvement of search results and increase the size of your company's net. As a result, many organizations leverage blogs and other online articles to increase their exposure.

In your company offers products and services to other businesses, the online marketing strategies that work to generate leads are typically less clear. For example, a firm that offers printing services may easily be found online, by a business customer seeking this particular service. However, if the firm offers a novel or unique service (for example, a cutting edge software application for tracking marketing leads), your target audience may not know to seek out this service.

If you are offering professional services to other businesses, as is the case with most defense firms, reputation plays a critical role and it is therefore not likely that a search engine approach would yield meaningful results. However, leveraging online networks to develop relationships and joining groups that your clients are part of may be highly beneficial to this type of firm. Blogging to establish expertise in a particular area of law and sharing this with your clients may also be a highly effective tactic.

If you are uncertain about the online marketing tactics that are best suited for your type of firm, ask an expert. Some tactics will be more effective than others and ultimately you may have to test a few in small doses to see what type of impact they can have on your business

Marketing a Personal Injury Practice

First, check out the following article for several interesting perspectives from industry marketers on their preferred personal injury firm marketing tactics.

In 1998, the summer after my first year of law school, I obtained a job working for a plaintiff's advertising firm that focused primarily on generating leads for birth trauma cases. We focused on two key areas: bulk television advertising that was purchased on behalf of affiliate law firms and Web site search engine optimization.

I had first hand experience with how successful both of these tactics can be when used properly and the type of return that targeted marketing can generate. All marketing comes down to one important acronym - ROI (return on investment). Essentially, what you spend to bring in business vs. the financial value of your efforts. The top law firms track all incoming leads and know exactly which marketing activities generate the highest return on their marketing investment.

I will let you in on a little inside secret... for personal injury firms, online marketing can yield a higher return than TV, yellow pages, PR, etc... The reason why even many experts fail to recognize the true potential of online marketing is because most lawyers do not put their online marketing dollars where it counts.

Inevitably, some high priced marketing company with a big brand name will convince law firms to squander $50,000 on a Web site with fancy video and flash animation, and throw them into a Google key word (pay per click) bidding war and get listed in high priced directories, until ROI is so diminished that the law firm either loses faith in online marketing, or continues because other tactics in the marketing mix are covering up a flawed online marketing strategy.

The way to get dramatic returns on your online marketing is to focus on getting your Web site high in organic search results, while being very strategic with pay per click efforts. It is better to not engage in pay per click, than it is to do it incorrectly. With all the buzz about social media and new marketing trends, ORGANIC SEARCH IS STILL KING of ROI and it is the one place where smart can beat spend. To be effective, you have to understand the basics and you have to be plugged into the right resources. You also have to be patient - and many law firms seeking immediate gratification may miss out on huge opportunities.

If I can only give you one tip about achieving organic search success it is that a large firm working with dozens of competing firms, in the same geographic market, cannot possibly look out for everyone's interests. SEO is a dog eat dog game and you want a firm that will put your interests first and put in the time. This is one particular area, where I have the experience and contacts to help blog readers, but there are some business secrets that are too valuable to make public.

If you want access to the secrets of maximizing online marketing ROI for your personal injury practice, e-mail me at jzissu1-litigation@yahoo.com and we can set up a discussion where I can provide additional detail.

Think Marketing is an Expense? Think Again.

You have a proven product or service that is in demand. The recession has caused the demand to diminish by 10%. You reduced your marketing spend by 25%. Your new business is now declining 50%. Marketing is where many business owners and CEOs look to cut costs when the economy slides. If you are cutting marketing by a percentage that is disproportional to the decreased demand for your offering, it is very likely that your marketing program was either ineffective and not optimized to begin with (in which case you need to get a better grasp on your marketing return on investment), or that your organization is making a major strategic mistake that will end up costing clients and revenue.

I have a business colleague named Elliot Stone, who is the CEO of a firm called MedQuest MedQuest, a highly successful litigation support service company. His firm offers Medical Expert Services, Sanction Databases, Record Retrieval and other resources. Elliot deserves mention, because he put his foot on the pedal hard when the economy slowed and others who were similarly situated fell asleep at the wheel.

By increasing his marketing and even bringing on marketing resources when others pulled back, Elliot was able to take advantage of the reduction in noise to deliver his messages and is reaping the rewards in increased customers. This is not about the demand for his services increasing dramatically, rather about outperforming competitors through smart, timely and consistent marketing.

Can't find sufficient money to market? Cut your operating expenses. Want to know how, send me a note at jzissu1-litigation@yahoo.com and I will gladly discuss with you what your organization can do to cut operating costs in order to free up marketing investment dollars. Tip: Recession is a time to trim fat, but trimming productive marketing resources is a one-way ticket to lost marketshare.

Effective Social Network Marketing

According to its Wikipedia definition, social media marketing is "an engagement with online communities to generate exposure, opportunity and sales."

Today, prominent social media sites include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and many more 8 figure subscriber sites that are prominent within their geographical or demographical spheres of influence.

The volume of social media Web sites springing up these days is reminiscent of the competing search engines back around 2000. Some of you may remember names like Lycos, Webcrawler, Excite, Altavista, or Infoseek. Many of these engines disappeared rapidly and we will likely see similar results within the social media space.

I think it's Facebook's game to lose at this point though and their subscriber base and growth trend position the company for considerable sustained success. LinkedIn is also highly influential within the business community and may ultimately change the recruitment/job seeking landscape entirely.

Understanding the basics of social networking is critical so you can begin to think of ways your business can leverage these evolving marketing platforms, as competitive marketing differentiators.

Click here for a link of sites around the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Click here for a link of recent Facebook statistics: (pretty astounding)
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

So, how can you integrate social media into your current strategy?

First, focus on relationship building with relevant contacts, on sites that you are comfortable with. Do not look to navigate, or even understand the entire world of social media - it is far too broad reaching and may be overwhelming, if viewed in its entirety.

There are many influential community members, lawyers and non-lawyers users of sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, who can be great potential sources of new client leads for your law practice. Social media allows you to stay in touch regularly, by posting relevant updates or news about your firm. This way, you are continually reminding contacts of your expertise in the domain, making it more likely that you will be the one they reach out to. While not everyone within your network circle will be interested in an proactively seek out your professional blog, you may still be able to share important information and updates via more personal sites like FaceBook or Twitter. For example, a blurb announcing a a recent $5 Million medical malpractice verdict may attract the attention of your banker, who has a client whose mother was recently misdiagnosed. Alternatively, a LinkedIn profile, higlighting the new organization that you are now affiliated with may cause an old business contact that you did not expect to hear from to inquire into your offering.

Also, social media opens the door to highly targeted marketing to sizeable audiences. Facebook's pay per click marketing tools, for example, enable advertisers to target a subset of its roughly 1/4 Billion user base, by interests, age, location, etc... As with any marketing tactics, you will want to test, measure and optimize to make sure you are achieving the ideal return on your investment.

There is an art to leveraging social networks to promote a product or service and most experts will advise to be very cautious in your approach, so it does not backfire. Tip: Social Media is a two-way communication channel - using it as a one way tool is ineffective and may harm your company's image Getting a contact that you met online through a social network to visit your Web site, or blog takes patience. Leverage your relationships to give your organization a human element and nurture these relationships and you will see the long term dividends.

Lastly, social media is an incredibly powerful tool for exchanging information with both peers and clients, including developments in the law, trial strategies and successes. The field of social media is still in its infancy right now and I would strongly recommend that you first get your feet wet and start taking advantage of some of the networking opportunities offered. Once you understand how to network within your social circles, you will be better positioned to grasp the strength of various opportunities to market outside of it.

Get Ready to Rumble...

As an early pioneer of Web assisted dispute resolution, I am very disappointed to inform that relationships between insurance companies and claimants have recently taken a turn for the worse and plaintiff's and defense lawyers may already be seeing the impacts of this shift toward an increasingly adversarial environment. Of course, the economic downturn is once again the main culprit.

So, what exactly is going on? The property and casualty insurance industry depends on premium investment earnings for a considerable portion of profits. There are many profitable carriers that do not have a combined ratio (losses plus expenses divided by earned premiums) of under 100. Translated in English, a carrier may spend $1.02 and earn $1.00. However, in good times, that $1.00 can generate an extra $.16 because it is floated, or held on to for a lengthy period of time.

As you can guess, insurance carriers are not very eager to part with their capital, while their investments earnings are at all time lows. Under normal conditions, insurance companies are driven by both the compelling need to satisfy policy holders and the financial reality that legitimate claims do not get cheaper as they age. However, given the market dowturn, carriers have started digging in and cash flow has become the new profit and loss.

Here's a link to an interesting Business Insurance article, where David Siesko of Siesko Partners elaborates on the carrier perspective and its current impact on relationships with policy holders.

What does this mean for litigation professionals and the vendors that support them?
This phenomenon is having a profound impact on the industry and the impact varies according to the perspective.

Let's start with plaintiff's lawyers and claimants. If you are a trial lawyer that handles a large volume of carrier settlements, get ready for protracted negotiations, and an increase in litigation due to less flexibility by insurers. An increasing number of commercial carriers will be following in the footsteps of auto carriers and taking an increasingly rigid approach to settlement. A year ago you may have negotiated a specific injury to a $45,000 settlement. Today, a carrier may offer you $35,000 and tell you to take it or sue.

"Mill" type firms, which are dependent on high volume, low severity claims, will see an increase in receivable cycles and likely a reduction in the amounts they are able to negotiate. This will ultimately cause many firms to rethink their existing business strategies. Plaintiff's firms will become increasingly dependent on litigation financing companies to help them navigate the peaks and troughs that will be created by this new environment.

Insurance companies will become increasingly dependent on defense firms, which is certainly a positive if you fall within this category. However, it is not all sugar and spice, as insurers have begun to scrutinize every dollar spent, in an uprecedented fashion. A number of carriers are hiring additional legal bill review experts to help them turn the heat on their defense firms.

Legal vendors will be impacted differently, depending on the type of business they are in. Litigation financing is a great place to be today - just have to make sure your investment is secured by viable cases, or that the firm you are lending to is very healthy financially. It is a different ballgame today.

Some vendors, particularly ones working with plaintiff's firms, may expect a delay in receivables. Firms will not be seeing settlements as fast as they once were and this is going to affect everyone doing business with them. It is a good time to be in the cost-savings business, but you will need to demonstrate an immediate and certain financial return, to win business consistently.

So a few tips to overcome this change in carrier practices: ensure adequate cash flow by learning about and leveraging the legal financial services available on the market, keep your own operations trim and tight to remain competitive and make sure to stay on top of the aging of your receivables.

The Increasingly Important Web Site

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season. A few days ago, Amazon.com surprised a lot of people (including me) with record holiday sales, despite the economic climate. I think this underscores two very important points. First, consumers are increasingly price sensitive and Amazon has done an excellent job of delivering value at reduced prices. Second, it is compelling evidence that consumers are increasingly embracing technology to conduct business and that the Internet is not only facilitating offline business, but in many instances replacing many aspects of it.

This is why, more than ever, organizations can no longer afford to throw up a Web site that simply touts products and services. Web sites are becoming 2 way streets, that allow companies to interface with customers, through the collection and distribution of information.

At a minimum, ask yourself the following questions:
How does your Web site capture information from your visitors?
Do you have a sufficiently compelling proposition on your Web site to capture incoming leads on your Web site? In other words, what are you offering to visitors in exchange for sharing their contact information (other than your services)?
Does your Web site focus only on the features of your services, or do you clearly communicate benefits and/or savings that your prospects are looking for.
Countless studies have found that emotion plays a large part in the purchasing process. Even the most rational and analytical buyers are influenced. How does your Web site leverage this?
What steps have you taken to ensure that the information you posted is consistent with what your prospects are seeking?
What activities do you engage in to nurture the leads generated via your Web site? Do you have a process for this, or do you follow up arbitrarily?

Tip: Your Web site is becoming an increasingly critical lead generation tool, irrespective of the business you are in and appearance is much less important than function.

If you would like some free tips on ways to improve your Web presence, contact me today at jzissu1-litigation@yahoo.com

Blogging Secrets... Revealed

The list of reasons why bloggers blog is fairly vast and some of the benefits may come as a surprise. When I first heard of blogging, I naively assumed that it was something that self-centered people with too much free time did... and now here I am... hmmm.
OK, should you consider a blog and if so why? My answer is... it depends... so why do bloggers blog?

1) Search Engine Traffic
According to search engine gurus the return on your marketing investment for natural search can blow pay per click away. Blogs promoting your business or law firm can dramatically enhance your search engine position listing. This one should be reason enough for many plaintiff's lawyers looking to cast a wide net for claimants. I managed search engine optimization for a law firm advertising company back in 1999 and had the opportunity to see how powerful of a marketing tool this was, even 10 years ago. Today, with the keyword price inflation of pay per click (particularly for terms such as "Personal Injury" or "Asbestos Litigation" or "insert harmful drug name here" - you get the picture Trial Lawyers...) Should you have a blog for this purpose? The answer is: the bigger your organization is and the more critical search is in your overall marketing mix, the more likely you will need to give blogs serious consideration, as part of your overall strategy.

2) Position Yourself as an Industry Expert
If you write enough about what people want to read, they will come back. If they come back enough, you may find that one day you will actually be seen as an expert in your field. In fact, I think my mother is fairly convinced that I am an industry luminary in the litigation marketing field and sends my blog to all her friends and co-workers, so if you happen see her, please let her keep thinking that I am important...

3) Social networking with a group sharing common interests
This one is fairly straight forward. Chances are you are probably reading this because you have some interest in the litigation world, or in getting some tips on improving your marketing.

4) Cost-effective Promotion
Web sites cost money - blogs are free. They are also very easy to use and do not require a high degree of technological aptitude.

5) Communicate Message to Broad Audience
You publish a post once and the content is there forever for anyone to find. Blogs are also cumulative. The more you post the stronger your blog becomes. 20 posts are 10 times more likely to be found than 2. It is virtually impossible to not see a considerable increase in traffic if you commit to posting on a regular basis.

There are many other reasons for blogging, but these are some of the most common. Remember, Tip: Blogging is highly cost effective, but you need to be persistent to see results. It's not for every organization, but it can make a huge difference in certain organizations. If you would like to know whether a blog is appropriate for your firm, e-mail me at jzissu1-litigation@yahoo.com

More Recession Wisdom

I came across a very interesting report on marketing during a recession. It is a more elaborate and substantiated take on some points I had made in a recent post.

http://www.mb-blog.com/Images/Recession_POV1_Final.pdf

Whether you are a law firm or vendor in the space, putting the brakes on your marketing during the recession will cripple your business in the long term, particularly if you are operating in a highly competitive environment.

If you are a vendor and are in the business of cost savings, or directly helping firms acquire or retain business, there is no better time to get aggressive than now. If you can tie your offering to a concrete financial value proposition you will greatly improve your chances of getting the business.

Marketing, Operations & Your Litigation Practice

In today’s competitive legal environment, litigation frequency is gradually, but persistently decreasing and technology is completely redefining competitive advantage in both marketing and operations. As a result, litigation firms that lack the foresight to adapt will inevitably be forced out of the marketplace by organizations with more innovative and aggressive business practices.

While competent legal representation leading to favorable outcomes remains the key benchmark upon which litigation firms are measured by their clients, organizations of all types are finding innovative ways to reduce costs, and to increase profits by improving the return on their promotional initiatives. Once firms have ensured that they have the legal talent necessary to succeed, they must turn their attention toward two key areas of opportunity for competitive differentiation: operations and marketing.

Most firms today are completely inundated with the requirements of running a legal practice and often fail to dedicate sufficient time and resources on building the appropriate business infrastructure to ensure sustained growth and competitive advantage. Many such firms have grown through considerable reliance on quality of relationships of one or more partners. This overreliance on the brand of a particular individual poses multiple potential threats, or opportunities, depending on one’s perspective.

First, when the markets face recession like conditions, price sensitivity is heightened. This is a major opportunity for efficient organizations to capture market share from competitors by either offering a comparable offering at a better fees, or offering additional value through enhanced technological capabilities.

Next, there is considerable risk that the departure or loss of a key firm member can have considerable potential impact on firm revenue. By establishing greater brand equity in the firm itself, an organization may partially insulate itself from such a threat. Large and prominent corporate firms such as a Skadden Arps, or a Wachtell Lipton, Rosen & Katz, often recruit lawyers from other firms, or even merge in entire departments. The strength and prominence of their brands allow new firm members to benefit from the overall reputation of the firms.

Now, these firms did not build their brands overnight. They established them over decades and decades of quality representation and continual commitment to excellence. The good news is that today’s market is much more dynamic and competitive and your business can achieve much more in a far quicker time by implementing cutting edge marketing and operational strategies.

As a smaller firm, you may not have the same firepower (read capital), but thinking about your processes like the big firms do will keep you one step ahead in the game. Here is a partial checklist you may want to go through in your mind as you consider how your firm stacks up against the competition in the areas of marketing and operations:

Marketing

• How do you highlight your firm’s successes to existing clients and/or prospects?
• What do your regular client touch points look like, outside the ordinary course of handling your case?
• How do you measure the overall financial return on your marketing expenditures?
• If you deal with repeat client business (plaintiff’s firms typically excluded), what is the lifetime value that the average client brings to your firm?
• How much does it cost you to bring that client in?
• Do you have a process for capturing information for and following up with business leads (Web site visitors, inbound calls, RFPs, event participants, exhibit booth traffic, random leads)
• What steps have you taken to provide your staff with better sales and client service skills?
• Do you have a cost-effective marketing process for continually staying in front of your key prospects until they are in a position to contact you?
• How are you leveraging new technological capabilities in your marketing efforts? Online surveys? Electronic newsletters? Social media focusing on your areas of expertise?

Operations

• Is there a more cost-effective solution to handling your firm’s redundant tasks?
• Does your technological infrastructure maximize staff efficiency and provide management and clients with transparent data?
• How do you handle temporary surges in labor requirements caused by considerable case loads?
• Is your firm able to perform around the clock?
• Do you have clearly defined roles and responsibilities and processes in place

Tip: The most successful businesses focus on their core competencies and seek out assistance in areas outside the scope of their expertise. If you are a law firm, practicing law is yours. Remember, putting a plasma tv in your office is an expense. Spending capital on cost reduction initiatives, or on improving client acquisition and retention is an investment.

Now for the shameless self-promotion... LitigatorEdge will help you take your business to the next level by improving your firm's operational and marketing performance. Contact me at jzissu1-litigation@yahoo.com if you would like to discuss your needs further.

Legal Process Outsourcing & Litigation Technology Trends - Interview with Shree Laxman of Law Allies

We have a very special posting lined up for today. I had the opportunity to interview Shree Laxman, the President of Law Allies, which is a client that I have worked with. Law Allies is a leading provider of technology, outsourcing and consulting services, specializing in the claims / litigation domain.

Q. Shree, you have worked with many progressive litigation firms. Can you tell LitigatorEdge readers, what is it that these firms do right technologically?

A. Law Firms, like many other businesses, have to understand the changing paradigm of operations in this day and age. Law firms have to be open 24/7 and attorneys need to have access to cases 24/7 and from anywhere. The thing that most successful law firms do right, is to ensure total control over their information, at all times, ubiquitously.

Q. In your opinion, what are the most critical technology elements for a plaintiff's firm?

A. Access to their information from anywhere anytime is the most critical element for a plaintiff law firm. The firm needs to have a case manager application online, and all documents should be electronic. The system should be able to "talk" to other applications like court calendars, investigation agencies, medical document retrieval systems, etc... This Web capability allows the firm to not only have presence in the immediate state, but anywhere in the US, or beyond.

Q. How about for a defense firm?

A. For a defense firm, billing is a crucial element. The traditional way of billing, which involved sending out a monthly bill, by having the attorney, paralegal and secretary dedicate time to this, is an inefficient and laborious approach to this task. The technology should be able to track in "real time" the tasks that are performed by attorneys and paralegals. Also, there is great competition between defense firms and they need need to be able to showcase their case winnings and statistics to insurance companies and other clients. Currently, many defense firms do not have a good in house library of their cases, because they lack a consolidated case management system.

Q. We hear so much negative publicity about the outsourcing of call centers and how this can adversely impact customer service for large corporations. Is it really possible for a litigation firm to improve its customer service by outsourcing functions? If so, which functions are most outsourceable for litigation firms and how does this work?

A. Outsourcing is often confused with "offshoring". The concept of outsourcing is to concentrate all resources and efforts on core functions, while not getting distracted with expenses and efforts on non-core functions. There is only one universal way of being profitable. Profits equal income minus expenses. By analyzing a firm's operations', non core functions can be identified and optimized and these functions can be outsourced to companies that specialize in these functions. Doing this can considerably increase a firm's revenues while decreasing expenses.

Q. Our blog readers appreciate how important client relationships are. What are some of the technological steps a law firm can take to improve client relationships?

A. In this day and age, access is everything. A firm has to be accessible and operational 24/7. There is no reason for a firm to be fixated by the old age model of 9-5 and confined to a single office location. A client should have access to the firm, its cases and be aware of any changes in status of its cases at all times and from any location.

Q. How can plaintiff's lawyers leverage their internal technology to become better marketers?

A. The evolution of technology in today's world has gone from Web 1.0, which was a pure plain Web site acting like a visiting card to Web 2.0, which is a service and interactive application like online banking, policy and claims handling by insurance companies. A majority of law firms and health care providers still have not embraced a Web 2.0 model and some have not even gotten to the point of Web 1.0. Plaintiff's lawyers can no longer think only in terms of having a Web presence. They need to provide a better service and better access to their clients in order to keep up with the times and with competition. The referral systems need to mature also to take advantage of the collaborative marketing - for example Google referral.


Q. You have been working with some of the most prominent litigation firms in the industry for some time now. What have you learned about working with these firms that you can share with other vendors who wish to partner with litigation firms?

A. The companies need to evolve toward service based models rather than product based models. Across the horizon, even the heavy weights of product companies like Microsoft have made a push toward Office Online and Microsoft MSN Platform. It is just a matter of time before old paradigms of product based sales will be outdated.

Well, many thanks to Shree for his valuable insight. In summary, [Tip:] make sure to keep up with technology trends if you want to keep up with the competition.

For more information on technology and outsourcing solutions that your firm cn leverage or, if you have any specific questions for Shree, please e-mail me at: jzissu1-litigation@yahoo.com.

The Price is Right... Right?

Today we're shifting focus to one of the 4 p's of Marketing - Pricing. In sticking with the recession motif, I wish to point out that a company's pricing strategy becomes even more critical in a down market.
There are few organizations that are not price sensitive these days and considerable power has shifted to the customer / purchaser. When the market tightens, demand drops and competition stiffens. This is why it is absolutely critical to (Tip:) consider a customer centric pricing model, whereby revenue is earned when value is delivered to the client.
Plaintiff's lawyers have a highly customer centric model - most of you do not charge unless claimants win. This makes it very compelling for a client to come to you and creates great disincentive for a claimant to deal directly with the insurance adjuster. However, I predict that 1/3 contingency arrangements on 8 figure verdicts may eventually be history, as the Internet will eventually connect informed claimants directly to the results of the top firms in a particular area of expertise and those firms will have to duke it out for the right to represent that particular client.
Yes, firms compete for clients today, but many claimants select firms from one tv ad or one friend referral. Sophisticated consumers will eventually have access to the type of data that will enable them to make much smarter and more efficient purchasing decisions on the type of firm they select and yes, that $10 Mil. contingency on a $33 Mil. verdict that cost you only $1.5 Mil. in litigation expenses and overhead will become less and less common, as a broader pool of competent plaintiff's lawyers and increased technology will ensure tighter competition.
If you are a defense firm and would like to differentiate yourself and possibly win over a new client, how about putting more skin in the game than your competitors? Consider making a small percentage of your fees contingent on particular agreed upon success metrics or "key performace indicators" - just make sure you do not assume too much risk that is outside of your control.
If you are a vendor, make a note of the companies offering similar products and services. Ask yourself questions such as: how are they different, why is it that they are pricing this way, is it important for me to be better on price, or do I have sufficient competitive differentiators that this is not necessary.
Lastly, always keep an open line of communication with your customers. If your product or service is not priced appropriately, they will typically let you know it.

Staying Afloat in Rough Waters

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." - FDR

Economic experts are predicting that we are about to enter a period of recession that is expected to last for at least the next 12 months. Inevitably, many undisciplined investors will react and move long term investments out of equity and into conservative investment when the market bottoms out, only to miss the ultimate rebound.

There is little difference where business owners and marketing are concerned. In fact, when the going gets tough, the smart steal business away from competitors.
Challenging economic, or down business cycles, actually help sort out inefficiencies in the marketplace.

For example, if a particular defense firm has a relationship with a manager in an insurance branch office, they may have had the luxury of being insulated from competition when markets were strong. Now, the same company may have tighter cost contraints from home office that will force that manager to consider shopping multiple firms that deliver the same, or greater value at more competitive fees.

A vendor that offers cost management solutions to law firms may find that their offering is a much greater business priority today than it was just a year ago and they may actually experience a reduced sales cycle.

Consider the fact that many of your competitors will decrease their marketing spend and there may be far less marketing clutter, as well as decreased demand, which means your dollar may take you much further. As always, look for opportunities where you will get the biggest return and bear in mind that the legal world is not impacted by discretionary spending like other industries are.

Remember, the markets will eventually improve, and what affects your business affects everyone else's also. Tip: The real battle is against other firms, not the market and will be decided by which company can promote itself better, offer more favorable pricing and deliver a superior product and/or service to its clients.

The auto industry serves as case in point and I will rest my case here.

Listening to Your Clients

I have been quite busy over the last week or so with a new client, hence the gap in between posts. The good news is, I can relate this directly to a marketing tip. The marketing tip today is always listen to your clients.
Marketing ultimately boils down to communicating your value to a prospect or client. It is impossible to do this well without listening to a client's needs.

Whether you are selling turkey or telescopes, being in tune with your clients is the key to client retention. For example, in my consulting capacity, I have come across situations where the client wanted a project completed in a way that was not necessarily intuitive to me. In these instances, it turned out that the client was driven by needs that were not immediately apparent.

Actively listening to the client and following up with probing questions will allow you to elicit the client's true objectives. Remember to hone your listening skills and utilize them in your direct interactions with clients.

Strength in Numbers

Why is it that Fortune 500 companies can't seem to get enough of gobbling each other up? Companies merge, the large company now acquires a smaller one, then another, until the company becomes too large and diverse to effectively manage. Before you know it the company is involved in an accounting scandal that the CEO "never knew about", or the company falls to pieces as a result of risky subprime bets. Then, guess what? A white knight swoops in and... yup, you got it - acquires the collapsed business.
While there are many lessons (Do's and Don't Do's) to be learned from the world of mergers and acquisitions, here are a few reasons why companies choose to merge.

- Consolidate redundant functions and cut costs
- Gain tax advantages
- Increasing market power
- Compensating for weakness in key areas

How does this apply to litigation marketing?
Tip: There is strength in numbers.

The same principles that apply to these large companies also make sense for smaller entities. I have seen a perfect example of this in a NY no-fault/PIP firm that has brilliantly combined partner merger activity, superior marketing and client communications, technological efficiency and operational exellence to blow their competition away and gobble up market share. The merger was the catalyst for everything else that followed.

They combined one partner's marketing expertise, with another's client base, another partner brought strong operational capabilities to the table and together they created efficiencies and pooled resources. This in turn allowed the partners to focus on their respective areas of expertise, cut costs, increase marketing spending and it wasn't long after until no firm in the marketplace could keep up and they put much of their competition out of business.

Now, I am not suggesting that mergers, or even joint ventures are for everyone. In the legal field, or even as a legal vendors, getting in bed with the wrong partner can be disastrous. However, it is important to be mindful of the flip side of this coin. Make sure that you do not get so caught up in your business routine, that you ignore opportunities to strengthen your firm's or company's strategic position - your competitors may be doing just that!

Referrals: The Biggest Lost Opportunity in Business

Let's face it, there is no such thing as the perfect marketing plan. No matter who you are, what type of business you are in, there is always an opportunity to improve your marketing. With so many different business priorities, there is just not enough time in the day to focus on all the opportunities to promote your business.

Therefore, when we approach a subject as critical as referrals, I will make sure I stress that this tactic is not a "nice to have" but a "must have" in your marketing practices. That said, I would be willing to guess that 90% or more of all businesses do not have a reasonably sound strategy for leveraging client referrals.

How many plaintiff's firms follow up with their personal injury clients by sending an e-mail or letter along the following lines: "Dear Ms. Smith, it was our pleasure assisting you with your case. We wish you a speedy continued recovery.
We hope we were able to exceed your expectations while we represented you. If there is anything we could have done better, please let us know, as we are always looking for ways to improve our practice.
If you were satisfied with our service and performance, we would greatly appreciate your future referrals."

Requesting referrals is a very easy tactic that offers an astounding return on your efforts, but is often forgotten. As a defense lawyer working with a client, how about following up a positive survey response with a follow-up call? "Good afternoon Mike, I wanted to take a minute to thank you for your continued business and the time you took to provide feedback. [My pleasure] Mike I would like to ask you one more thing, do you feel based on our service level that you would feel comfortable recommending our firm to a peer? [yeah, certainly] Would you be comfortable giving me the names and contact information of 2 or 3 peers that you feel may be interested in considering our firm on their next case? [no problem] That's wonderful, thank you so much, and may I refer to the fact that we have worked with you on these particular matters [go for it] Thank you!

And that is how simple and effective referrals can be. It takes a little salesmanship, but if you give it a shot, you will be increasing your business in no time!

Tip: Think about missed referral opportunities in your ordinary course of business and try to leverage them whenever possible

Return on Client Investment

If you were to impart just one lesson from your business experiences, what would that be?

Although I certainly have a lot more learning to do, I would have to say that over the first 10 working years of my career, my personal lesson is to always strive to exceed expectations -- as it pertains to both performance and character.

I have always tried to go above and beyond what my supervisors expected. Further, I came to the fundamental realization that it was not enough to exceed the expectations of the company that employs me, but that I needed to do everything within my sphere of control to exceed the expectations of those who employ my company - our clients.

What does this have to do with marketing?

As I noted in an earlier blog, marketing touches all parts of your business and Tip: there are few things that can impact your business brand (positively, or negatively), like the level of service you provide to your clients.

Think about the last time a business truly wowed you with its level of service. Companies that I interact with that stand out in my mind are Enterprise Rental Car, Optimum Cable, Fidelity Investments and Geico. Every time I deal with these organizations they are prompt, knowledgeable, profesional and always seem to go the extra yard. Consequently, my business has stayed with these organizations even though I may conceivably have saved a few bucks by moving elsewhere.

The best organizations create a culture of customer service amongst their employees and if you are able to achieve this, you too will see remarkable improvements in your business output. Great client service reduces turnover and increases profits. I have seen top tier client service salvage Fortune 500 accounts, in spite of inferior product offerings. Yes, it is THAT important.

As a plaintiff's firm, consider the importance of giving regular feedback to your clients on the status of their cases. Yes, it is likely that you are extremely busy, but think of how professional you would look if you had your secretary or paralegal proactively e-mail a periodic status update to your client. You would reduce the number of calls and improve satisfaction and subsequent referrals.

Defense firms - same thing. Keeping adjusters and defense counsel in the loop is another great strategy to build relationships. Couple surveys with a strong process for status updates and you are already ahead of the game. If you want to truly wow your best clients, try noting their contact preferences and customizing your follow-up strategy to their unique needs.

As a vendor servicing litigation firms, take the time to understand what clients value most in your interactions with you. Is it the support that you provide when they have questions on their software? Is it how quickly you respond to a trial exhibit need? How much personal care you give in understanding what they are looking for in a Web site? Determining the types of service interactions your clients value most and going above and beyond to execute better than your competition is another clear key to success.

The Rise of the Affiliate Marketing Program

If you have ever paid someone a fee or a percentage for sending you business, you are already familiar with the core concept behind affiliate marketing, a form of online marketing that is, relatively speaking still in its infancy.
Today plaintiff's firms typically take 1/3 of 1/3 when referring a case to another firm that is better equipped to handle that particular type of case. Maybe there are minor deviations, but this is fairly standard practice in the industry today. This arrangement will likely be gone with the rise of the Internet, as will the standard 1/3 fee.

The Internet is giving considerable power to the consumer and things that we have come to expect as standards today will be obsolete tomorrow. You can call it a prophecy, lunacy, or just research enabled foresight. In any case, I will spare you the details of my Nostradamic prediction, just trust me that competition will increase, fees will be even more closely aligned with lawyer performance and the 1/3concept will be subject to added flexibility.

Speaking of alignment with performance - we have come full circle and returned to the topic of affiliate marketing - which does just that. With affiliate marketing, an organization pays a fee to one or more affiliates or partners for a customer, or for traffic generated by the affiliate's efforts. For a very comprehensive explanation of affiliate marketing you can go to the following Wikipedia listing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing

If you are currently using revenue sharing as part of your business strategy, or considering this as an alternative, it pays to conduct some additional research into the concept of online affiliate marketing, even if only for your own knowledge. Today, major online retailers, e-commerce companies, financial services companies, etc... are the major players in affiliate marketing. Interestingly enough Wiki's historical overview points to gaming and adult Web sites as being among the first movers in the world of affiliate marketing.

Affiliate programs are somewhat complex to manage and consequently may be less feasible for a smaller, non e-commerce business. However, with the Internet becoming more sophisticated, chances are strong that online affiliate marketing programs may be something your organization will want to educate itself on further - particularly if you are a vendor with a strong online lead presence, or in a larger law firm targeting online leads.

Marketing Tip: Be aware of any new trends in marketing that can help to give you a leg up on the competition.

What is Marketing?

Ask 10 different lawyers or business people what marketing is and you are likely to hear a very broad range of responses. To one, it may be television advertising, yellow pages and print ads. To another it's a well designed web page and intelligent search engine marketing. A third will say it's managing client relationships through effective service.

The textbook definition of marketing is actually the process through which an organization develops and communicates value to its prospects and customers. When you stop to think about it, this is quite a broad definition - and it should be.

Tip: Marketing touches all parts of your organization and it encompasses vastly more than most imagine.

Marketing is pricing, market research and strategy, messaging, appearance of marketing material, planning and measurement, service, sales and yes, the channels through which you reach your clients. Solid marketing can make a company with a mediocre offering successful and poor marketing can make a company with a great offering fail.

The best marketing organizations measure return on marketing investment for every tactic and do not engage in tactics that are not measurable.

How many times have law firms become so dependent one or two marketing tactics that they are eventually blindsided when these channels dry up, or become oversaturated with competitors? Marketing requires the continual monitoring and analysis of results, tracking of lead sources and regularly updating strategies to keep ahead of the curve.

As for vendors, many do not realize how precarious their competitive position is, absent consistent monitoring and adjustment of their marketing efforts. I have managed marketing plans that have enabled the companies for which I workedto take considerable market share from segment leaders, in short periods of time. We were able to do this by executing throughly researched, integrated marketing plans and rapidly adapting them to those channels where the highest return on investment was realized. We maximized the highest return tactics and eliminated, or dramatically reduced the rest.

In conclusion, the proper management of your marketing is your highest return on investment. If, you are not able to afford a full time resource to assist in the continual tracking and measurement of your investments, consider retaining an experienced marketer on a consulting basis for a full evaluation of your current marketing process.

If you have any specific marketing topics you would be interested in hearing about, or have a specific question that pertains to your firm, please e-mail me or leave a comment and I will do my best to address your inquiry.

Getting the Most Out of Face to Face Events

When the economy is jittery, everyone starts to debate the value of most marketing efforts. Very often, tradeshows and events are among the first marketing tactics to receive the scrutiny of those looking to reduce costs... and often with good reason.

I have participated in scores of conferences, in a variety of industries, as an exhibitor and in a networking / attendee capacity. It amazed me how often I would see abandoned exhibits, exhibitors chatting away with peers with their backs turned to prospective clients, showing little to no effort to interact with attendees. When the event is over, it is often these same companies that complain the loudest about how poorly organized the event was.

Tradeshows, if conducted properly, are highly effective methods of reaching target audiences and studies have shown that leads generated from conferences cost considerably less to close than those generated from field sales calls. Attendees of events generally want to be there and most come with specific agendas.

The challenge is that even when exhibitors go through the right motions at events, a majority do not set objectives and an even larger percentage have no process for measuring their objectives, quantifying event results, or following up on leads.

Goals of any organization participating in an event include one or more of the following: increasing sales, increasing share of customer, introducing new products and services and positioning the company or its brand(s). It is important to understand the specific objectives of your organization for the event and plan a strategy around the objectives.

Assuming you have thoroughly researched the event and it is the appropriate forum to reach your intended audience, set your goals and strategies in advance of the event. Use past events to determine how many prospects you must speak with to achieve your specific target objectives and plan to hit your goals.

Measure your results after the event and track ultimate client revenue back to your lead to demonstrate your return on investment. Evaluate the event and report, using metrics to back up your outcomes.

A tactic used succesfuly by some exhibitors and one that my companies have often taken advantage of includes identifying and reaching out to key prospects and clients in advance of the conference and either arranging for a discussions/demo at the booth, or meeting over meals, drinks, or in a private, sponsored event.

As a vendor looking to reach litigators it is helpful to understand your target demographic. Is your ideal client a solo practitioner, or a 20 person firm? If the latter and you can obtain a pre-show attendee list, you may want to do some advance research on your top prospects. You can find lawyer bios and photos on many firm web sites, or bar directories. Even if some of your targets do not walk by your booth, knowing who they are may allow you to introduce yourself in a networking function, or different setting.

A defense firm looking to strengthen its brand value and facilitate networking opportunities between its lawyers and clients or prospects may consider sponsorship of a private reception. Be wary though, some "private" events have a tendency of turning into conference wide affairs - so be sure you have a solid plan for getting the qualified traffic to your event while filtering out the party crashers.

Plaintiff's lawyers, I appreciate that your role is rarely, if ever that of exhibitor, so I will leave you with an attendee tip. Sure, you're in Hawaii and the last place you want to be is in the exhibit hall when you can be enjoying your tax write-off vacation by the pool. Remember though, that there is a reason why many of the nation's top trial lawyers are also the same individuals who spend the most time in the exhibit halls at conferences. They are there to learn and determine which vendors can give them the advantage needed to stay ahead of the curve. I highly recommend speaking with as many vendors as possible when you are at a conference, whether you decided to purchase their services or not - if you go early in the morning there will be plenty of time to catch some sun. Not all will wow you, but it is very likely that you will have some interesting conversations that will give you clearer insight on ways to improve your practice.

The Colossus Phenomenon and Using Market Research to Increase Profits

Two very interesting topics on the agenda today: (1) What is really going with insurance companies' evaluation systems? (2) I will explain the importace of market research and review how you can use surveys to dramatically improve your business.

OK, on to the good stuff. Many litigators know that a number of insurance companies rely on claim evaluation software to assist adjusters in determining their offer range. Over the last year, I had the opportunity to present to and interact with sr. claims executives and in-house legal counsel at over 50 major insurance carriers, TPA's and corporations. During my discussions I asked about Colossus because it was relevant to how a company would prospectively use Cybersettle. I have also met with a number of claims/litigation vendors, including Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), the company which created Colossus. Lastly, I had conducted considerable independent research on this subject, while running Cybersettle's marketing department to make more informed marketing decisions about the best course for the business.

What is fairly common knowledge, particularly among plaintiff's lawyers, is how conservative and restrictive some of the tools are. Some auto carriers have dealt with considerable criticism and I believe even some bad faith suits related to the use of this type of product.

What is not as well known, is that while some personal auto carriers use these products, it is virtually unheard of for a commercial insurer or corporation to use a claim evaluation tool like Colossus or Claims Outcome Advisor today. So, why do auto carriers use them? The bottom line: carriers that use them are more profitable than ones that pay claims faster. My research found that years ago, a major consulting company (which I won't name), conducted a major study with a national auto insurer (which I also won't name) that found it to be in the company's financial interest to fight even meritorious claims aggressively and that allowing files to age, typically a costly activity, would be more than counterbalanced by the reduction in indemnity / payout.

I have independently confirmed this correlation, through intimate knowledge of insurer financial profitability ratios (public information in the AM Best book) and direct knowledge of which carriers use claim evaluation systems. These carriers regularly refused the adoption of early settlement intervention tools like Cybersettle, while commercial carriers, which have greater incentive to satisfy larger policy holders, were considerably more likely to "play nice" with the opposition.

How can it be cheaper for these companies to litigate than to settle? It is cheaper, because tens of thousands of plaintiff's attorneys throughout the US choose to settle for the amounts put out by these claims evaluation systems than to litigate. Many carriers have advanced systems that allow their adjusters to determine which lawyers/firms are tougher and present a greater risk and which ones are pushovers and will take the figures put out by the evaluation systems.

If more plaintiff's lawyers litigated meritorious claims against auto carriers, there would be higher outcomes for their clients, more business for plaintiff's lawyers and more business for defense counsel. Today, plaintiff's lawyers have access to financial services and litigation outsourcing support that can level the playing field, so one solution for countering a reduction in claims is to make more with the ones that exist.

So, I argue that the challenge here lies not with the insurance companies. Jurors dictate the value of settlements, not computers. The issue is that less than aggressive plaintiff's lawyers are driving settlement value down by accepting lower payout that is offered by these particular carriers. Very often, more experienced lawyers refer these smaller cases to younger peers starting their practice. These lawyers need cash flow, so they sometimes accept less than they should, because they cannot afford to wait years for a pre-trial mediation yielding a considerably larger settlement.

Interestingly enough, despite the financial success of several large carriers with the system, bad faith suits and adjuster resistance have caused many other carriers to have a very negative outlook on these evaluation systems. Many carriers will insist that they merely use evaluation systems as baselines, or starting points. Nevertheless, the ones that have seen the most bad faith suits and negative publicity, have been the most rigid with the application of these systems. Again though, the problem is that these same rigid auto carriers have also seen extremely high profit margins / financial ratios.

Recently, CSC has developed a new product called PrecendentID, which allows users to reference actual historical settlements by carriers. This seems to be an attempt to offer additional information to help adjusters in their decision making process and seems like an effort to leverage more realistic data. So far this is a new product offering and to my knowledge does not yet have the market penetration of some of the traditional evaluation tools, so it remains to be seen what impact this will have in the long term.

OK, this takes me back to marketing and the tip for today:

Tip: Master market research to give your business a huge leg up on the competition.
There are 2 things I can tell you about a business that does not conduct appropriate market research prior to launching a product or service: (1) I am not handling marketing there and (2) it has considerably reduced its chance for success.

Do you know why 86% of new businesses fail in this country? Because people launch businesses based on gut feelings. Mike thinks to himself: "I can cook well and come from Italian heritage, so let me open an Italian restaurant - I can rent Tina's vacant commercial property down the street."

In addition to the many business / financial concerns one must be prepared for when starting a business, there are numerous critical marketing questions that must be resolved. In this instance: how many other restaurants exist? How many Italian restaurants exist? What is the market demand for Italian food in the area? What do patrons of Italian restaurants in the area look for in a restaurant? Does the competition have shortcomings? What are the shortcomings? How critical are the shortcomings? Can I excel in those areas where my competition cannot?

One of the best ways to find out the answers to these types of questions and many others, as would be applicable to your business is by conducting a formal survey of your prospective clients. I have never launched, nor recommended the launch of a new product or service offering without suggesting some form of market research as a preliminary first step.

As you probably have existing clients and chances are small that you are looking to launch new products or services, I will focus on the importance of client surveys in this post.

A client survey serves a number of purposes:
1) It lets the client know that you care about their opinion of your business.
2) It gives you vital insight into ways you can improve your product and/or service
3) It enables you to elicit additional client needs that may be met through new offerings
4) It strengthens your business brand and gives you greater credibility
5) It may give you competitive information that you were not aware of

Guess what, even if you are the managing partner of your firm or CEO of your company, you get to have a performance review. The client survey IS your performance review.

As a plaintiff's lawyer, what better way to remind a claimant that you appreciate his or her referral than sending him or her a post settlement survey?

Defense counsel, this is indispensable in your line of business. Your in-house lawyer or adjuster clients will greatly appreciate regular efforts by you to stay on top of your firm's performance. I promise you that conducting this one cost-effective marketing initiative properly, will yield tremendous financial returns for your firm.

Business vendors, why do your litigation clients use your product versus your competition's? What change can you make today that would cause 20% of the clients using another company to leave and do business with you? What enhancements are your clients looking for that may allow you to develop an alternative source of revenue?

I highly recommend that when conducting a survey, you trust someone experienced to help you set this up. As I mentioned, a well crafted survey is a VERY POWERFUL marketing tool. An experienced marketer will help you draft quantifiable, appropriate questions and help you avoid major pitfalls that a novice might make such as mistakenly attempting to sell under the guise of research -AN ABSOLUTE NO-NO.

My next post will discuss events/conferences and I will explain why I think that 95% of organizations are leaving big amounts of money on the exhibiting table each time they attend.

What is going on in the insurance world?

During my time as head of Marketing for Cybersettle, I spent a lot of time analyzing data on the insurance industry, and more specifically, data on insurance bodily injury claims. I used many sources for my market analysis, including a book published by AM Best called Best's Aggregates and Averages. I believe this to be an indispensible source of information for any advanced marketer looking to keep a finger on the pulse of the insurance industry), and sometimes I also reviewed statistics on the Insurance Information Institute's (III) Web site.

The III, arguably a pro insurer Web site, offers data that shows a decline in litigation costs in 2006. This is considerable given inflation, the general trend for increasing settlement values and the III's natural tendency to position litigation data in a light most favorable to carriers. Further, the site explains that they project increases in litigation costs in 2007 & 2008 due to the subprime mortgage debacle. See the following link then come right back...

http://www.iii.org/media/facts/statsbyissue/litigiousness


This is great if your firm handles these types of disputes, but the one trend that is not touched on, is the continual drop in total annual bodily injury claims - the bread and butter for many of you, or the law firm clients you work with. In fact, based on my reviews of AM Best data, overall injury claim volume is currently decreasing by roughly 4%-5% anually. This is considerable and while not everyone will feel this immediately, it is inevitable that this will impact many firms.

Next, this trend is even more dramatic for plaintiff's counsel handling high volume, low severity cases. There are an increasing number of claimants using the Internet to get educated and handling small cases independently. Today, there is no consistent method by which a claimant can accurately evaluate his or her $20,000 or smaller claim, taking into account medicals, lost wages and pain and suffering in a given venue. With systems like Colossus and Claims Outcome Advisor offering evaluation mechanisms for carriers, you can be certain it is only a matter of time before technology will facilitate a claimants' ability to handle their own smaller claims start to finish.

Case in point: when Cybersettle started doing business back in 1998, there were only a handful of non-represened claimant setlements. In 2007, more than 10% of the cases submitted by insurance adjusters were against non-represented claimants. Assuming this trend is representative of the broader industry, as a plaintiff's lawyer handling large volumes of small cases, you are going up against a 5% annual industry claim volume decrease and an unrepresented claimant rate of over 10%+ and it is very difficult to predict how high this figure will get and how fast.

Defense counsel may not be as drastically impacted by the trend in non-represented small claims, but the overall shrinking pool, which includes larger injuries is certainly a major consideration.

Some vendors will be directly impacted, other more indirectly. Companies like Cybersettle handling large volumes of small claims will be affected by the industry reduction trend. Financial services companies marketing services to claimants through their attorneys may see a reduced opportunity for this. Overall competition will increase and profit margins for firms will shrink, and unless firms can adapt and find ways to reduce costs and become more competitive, discretionary firm spending will be impacted and many vendors will be affected by this.

In my next post, I will discuss in greater detail what I know about claim evaluation systems like Colossus and Claims Outcome Advisor, and the newer Precedent ID and how these have impacted the way personal and commercial carriers do business. This is very interesting stuff - be sure not to miss it.

Today's marketing tip: Marketing is so much more than communicating your offering to clients and prospects - marketing touches all facets of your business. A sound marketing strategy must incorporate understanding the big picture in your industry, through the accumulation of comprehensive business intelligence that gives you greater foresight and keeps you a step ahead of the competition.

More business with less insurance claims

Did you know that claim volume is shrinking considerably each year? Improved automobile safety standards, risk management practices, hospital policies, new technologies and boots with better soles mean less injuries, lower severity injuries and consequently reduced overall litigation market revenues. This industry trend, while great for society will inevitably affect the bottom lines of plaintiff's lawyers, defense lawyers and industry vendors. As a result, a number of law firms or companies that are in business today will not be in business this time next year. Even if your firm is not among the casualties, you may very well see dramatically reduced profit margins, or work longer hours to achieve the same results.

While the change will inevitably impact the industry, it doesn't have to impact your firm.

This blog will provide you with FREE marketing and business strategies for your law firm or company that will help you stay ahead of the curve and in business for a long time. I have accumulated this knowledge by spending the last 10+ years researching and marketing to litigation firms and working with litigation firm vendors and have learned how top organizations get there and stay there. I have also spent countless hours researching the Web, reading marketing and business books and newsletters on innovative marketing and operational strategies that have made Fortune 500 companies successful and applying this knowledge to gain competitive edge in a small to mid size business environment.

Sorry about the dramatic first paragraph, but it was necessary to illustrate my first marketing tip.

Tip: When communicating to clients or prospects verbally or through marketing messaging, it's not just what you say, it's how you say it.

FREE and FEAR.

In the paragraphs above, I invoked these 2 very basic, but incredibly effective marketing tools to get and keep your interest. If you look on the Internet, there are millions of examples of companies offering free services to get your interest, knowing they will benefit from their relationship with you long term by offering value today in exchange for the chance to gain your trust. Yahoo is a well-known example of this. They provide free e-mail, calendars, customizable content, games, etc... knowing that the relationship will result in later revenue from premium mail services, web hosting, advertising, etc...

As a plaintiff's lawyer taking a case on contingency, offering a FREE consultation explicitly is a must in all communications. One should not assume that the claimant knows this. It's easy to lose focus on other messaging differentiators and forget this critical element.

Most defense law firms looking to grow their business rely heavily on relationships, speaking opportunities and similar face to face tactics to generate a majority of their new business. However, in such a competitive space, where most firms are offering comparable services, sometimes at fixed prices set by insurance companies and using similar marketing tactics, why not try something different? Consider inviting clients and prospects to a free periodic webinar that highlights legal trends in your area of expertise. Most insurance company decision makers are used to interacting with vendors via the web and are likely to be open to getting valuable information from you. This is a good excuse to pick up the telephone, introduce yourself to the decision maker and offer them something you know will be valuable to them, while positioning yourself as a subject matter expert in a particular area of law. (It also shows that you are technologically progressive).

Litigation vendors, you also have numerous of opportunities to use FREE in your marketing. Free trial of a case management system, free demo CD, waiver of an application or other fee for a first financial service customer, free tie just for getting measured for a suit - you catch my drift...

Ok, now for my favorite FEAR. Good marketers know that appealing to emotion sells and arguably, no emotion sells like fear. If you can pinpoint a customer's fear and address this fear with your service, you will considerably improve your results. Think of some recent tv ads for cars that highlight special financing, or car features and contrast these to ads where a car is pummelled only for the driver to remain unscathed. Which of these do you remember most vividly today? Easy one, right? Another brilliant example is IBM's "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" campaign.

The same marketing principles apply to your business. As a plaintiff's lawyer, think of your prospective client's fears. What is even stronger than an ad for a law firm showing high verdicts and strong subject matter expertise? How about, one that addresses the fear of picking the wrong law firm and possibly losing the case, or achieving a poor outcome? Top marketers will elicit this fear, then put the prospect at ease by using testimonials and proven results to highlight why their firm is the first choice - right before offering a FREE consultation. Of course, it goes without saying that delivering a stronger communication should never cause an ad to cross the line into the realm of blurry ethical practices.

In a defense firm setting, it pays to understand your client or prospect and their unique fears. Listening to and understanding to the specific pain points of your clients and prospects is key. A barrier to working with your firm may be the fear that the in house employee will be the one making the decision to switch firms and doesn't want to risk getting burned in the event a case does not go as expected. If this is the case, maybe it pays to earn your client's trust by explicitly asking for smaller, low severity cases first, where you can demonstrate your capabilities and put the client at ease.

For litigation vendors, consider the impact on your lawyer client's referrals when using the wrong structured settlement company, a situation where the wrong recommendation of a medical expert proves disastrous, purchasing technology only to discover that the support fees are not reasonable, or the risk of using a search engine optimization company that does not have the expertise to deliver return on the client's dollars.

You may not remember much of what you read in this blog in a week, but I can bet that you will certainly recall that the claim industry is shrinking and that you can return to this blog for free marketing advice that you can apply to your litigation or litigation vendor business. Always consider how any marketing communications can be strengthened to invoke stronger emotions and think about creative ways to use a variety of "free" marketing tactics toward profitable outcomes, when you are courting a client and looking to develop trust.

I hope you found the tip interesting and relevant to your specific business and I will continue to share marketing and business insight, as it applies to the litigation industry. This post just scratches the surface and I hope to eventually start responding to specific questions and have litigation industry leaders share their business insights that can help you succeed. Please feel free to e-mail me to share feedback or suggest discussion topics.

During the next post, I plan to explain what I know about the shrinking claim industry, how I know this and share some interesting things you may not know regarding insurance companies.