South Carolina Trial Law Blog

I write about practice management and marketing a goodly amount and get a decent number of e-mails and questions about marketing and what is the best plan of action for their firm. There’s no right or wrong, but here’s a few things to take into consideration:

• What size market are you in? – I have a number of friends that are lawyers in Atlanta. The greater Atlanta area has 22,000 lawyers and a population of about 4 million. The entire state of South Carolina has about 11,500 lawyers and 3 million people. I live and work in Myrtle Beach.  Myrtle Beach has about 400 lawyers and a population of about 100,000. Different approaches are necessary for the different sizes.
• Are you in a high tech market? – In Myrtle Beach, we have a lot of construction workers and service industry workers (restaurant and hotel workers). We are a resort town with 1,500 restaurants. We’re a pretty low tech town. A lot of my workers comp clients don’t have a phone number throughout the entire engagement, much less an internet connection. You have to take a totally different approach in a high tech market such as Boston, Austin, Huntsville, San Jose or cities that are highly connected.
• Do the Yellow Pages Work?  – Based on the size of the market, different ways of reaching clients make more sense. I went heavy into the Yellow Pages in Myrtle Beach early on. At the moment, I have a full page ad for litigation, front and back of a divider tab between the white pages and yellow pages, a half page ad for workers comp and a handful of in column ads. That’s quite a bit, but in Myrtle Beach, it’s not too expensive. I also got in early enough on the full page ads to be in the number five spot of about 30 full page ads. Would it be worth it today to be in the 31st position? Probably not. I hate to think how much the same ad would cost in Manhattan, or any decent size city. In fact, even in Charleston, South Carolina, the Yellow Pages would probably cost 2–3 times the amount. Is it worth it to have just a little ad the size of a business card or a dollar bill? Hmmm……Probably not.

• Internet Presence – Google is the new yellow pages. What is your target market? What kind of people are they? How do they get their information? Are they on the internet? Google adsense and a good SEO (search engine optimized) website can be a tremendous source for business depending on the type of business and the people you’re reaching out to. Also, blogs do tremendously well for search engines. Search engines look for new content and ‘popularity’ with other sites. Weblogs do great on this.
• TV and Radio Advertising – The first wave of plaintiff’s attorneys had tremendously cheesy ads with ‘One Call, that’s All’ and ‘Got a Wreck? Get a Check.’ kind of advertising. It’s effective, but it’s hurt the plaintiff’s bar as much or more than the Chamber of Commerce ‘tort reform’ efforts. Now lawyers are realizing that they can advertise effectively in a way that shows the legal profession and their law firm in a positive way. The nice thing about advertising is that as plaintiff’s lawyers, we don’t need primetime. We don’t have to be on Friends, Oprah or the 6 o’clock news. Mid-day game shows and the middle of the night are fine. Injured people are in pain and can’t sleep at night. They’ll be channel surfing and watching television until they can fall asleep. They’ll be home in the middle of the day because of their injuries. How big is your market? How much money do you have to spend, where do you get the best bang for your buck?
• Networking and Attorney Referrals – What kind of reputation do you have in your community? Who else does that kind of work in your community? How many lawyers don’t do your type of work, but occasionally get referrals or potential clients. Is there anything you can do to actively cultivate those referrals? Go to lunch with those lawyers and see what you can do to help them?
• What Do You Have Going For You? – Marketers call is an ‘USP’ a ‘unique selling proposition’. Why should the client go to you, rather than the lawyer down the street? What is different about you, than other lawyers? One of the simplest and easiest ways to set yourself apart is to be friendly, nice, open and accessible. Sadly, most lawyers aren’t. I know it interrupts your day, but do you like your clients? Do you talk to them like people? Do you explain things to them? What else is there that’s different about you? Are you one of the best trial lawyers around? Did you graduate at the top of your class? Go to a top school? Really care about the client? and so forth…. You have to give the client a reason to come to your office as opposed to other law offices.