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Many experts will say that more resources should be put into marketing when the economy is not doing so well. This is fine, except there may be fewer resources available for marketing … and clients’ legal budgets may be limited.

if you have a need to cut costs, it does not mean that market-

ing should discontinue. There are many things that can be done, which are quite inexpensive, maybe even free.

Maintain Website

Your website is a great resource for potential clients to collect information on your firm. Make sure you main-tain it with the most up-to-date infor-mation. Your website should include information about the firm, attorneys, including their speaking engagements and published articles and cases, and practice areas. Your website should help the potential client make the in-formed decision to hire you.

Leverage your online presence by providing useful and infor-mative online content, driving traffic to your site and increasing your firm’s visibility.

Use Public Relations Get yourself in your local newspapers, law journals, business

publications and alumni magazines. send newsworthy items to all of the above and other publications, which are appropriate to your practice. Newsworthy items can include appointments, awards and recognitions, client successes (get client permission first, of course), charitable activities, speaking engagements, po-litical appointments, etc. You may even want to get more creative by issuing press releases about unusual items, such as getting pub-lished and coaching your kid’s team to a championship. This is all free publicity, and most publications will only except releases via email—no postage or printing costs!

Also, email the same press releases to other potentially inter-ested contacts in your rolodex. You can, again for free, communi-cate your expertise and accomplishments to your clients, referral sources and prospects.

Write Articles Getting published is probably much easier than you think. Con-

tact editors with ideas that would appeal to their respective read-erships. invite a client or another appropriate contact to co-write

with you. once published, you should request a PdF of your article. Again, email it to your contacts and don’t for-get to post to your firm website. Re-search shows that many prospects who look on the internet for lawyers, first get to a particular website through ar-ticles.

Use Your E-mail

Because money might be tight, all those client entertainment events,

lunches and dinners may be unrealistic. Therefore, to interact with your contacts, use your email as a marketing tool on a more frequent basis. Find excuses to say hello, ask about family and business, email articles of interest and so on. Never mind all the money you will save on gas!

if you currently send newsletters, think about sending them

electronically. While there are spam filters and delete is easy to hit, it will certainly save a bunch in printing and mailing costs.

SeminarsMany other professionals (accounting firms, banks, financial

companies, even other lawyers) conduct seminars free of charge. Attend these as a guest, you will probably even get a free breakfast or lunch. seriously, use these opportunities to meet new people with whom you can cultivate business relationships.

MArKeting tiPS in A DoWn eConoMy

By eD Miller AnD ShAnA gilliS

MARKETinG

(Continued on page 27)

“Research shows that many prospects who look

on the internet for lawyers, first get to a particular

website through articles.”

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if you conduct seminars, think about charging a modest fee to offset costs. Most people will not mind paying a small fee if they are interested in the topic. Another benefit is that, if there is a charge, people are more apt to actually attend. Again, use email to promote your seminar as opposed to a mail invite and/or advertising. Also, use email to follow-up with guests after the seminar and drive traffic to your site with seminar-related content, like the PowerPoint presentation, seminar materials or video of the event.

Social Networking

Get a page on Linkedin or even Facebook. These free web-sites are excellent to reconnect with stale relationships. The key is to be active on these sites, including telling people what you do, posting links to articles you have written, and asking questions about what your contacts are doing. Use your rela-tionships to gain business opportunities. The goal should not be to accumulate the most contacts in the world, but to cultivate and maintain business relationships. A side benefit is that you will indeed stay in touch with old friends.

These are just a few tips that you can use to stretch your mar-keting dollars. of course, if the economy is so bad that clients don’t have the money to hire lawyers, you have a bigger chal-lenge. hopefully, the following will provide some guidance on how to deal with this problem.

Creative Billing Practices discuss with your clients what will help them during this cri-

sis. Perhaps you can staff matters at a lower level so associates can do the bulk of the work, even offer to write off much of your time while serving in more of a supervisory role. Perhaps some matters can be taken on a contingency basis. Tell the client that you are willing to share more of the risk until the tide turns. Maybe fixed fees for certain matters are appropriate. Again, the options are plenty. discuss with your client what will help.

Value-Added Services

Provide more freebies to your clients. do in-house training programs and don’t bill all your time in answering simple ques-tions. Other creative value-added services could include allow-ing clients to use your facilities or bartering services when fea-sible and mutually beneficial. Another example is, where credit is hard to come by, you can help clients find financing.

Leverage Your ExpertiseThere is an old adage that someone else’s misfortune can be

your fortune. it may sound crass, but it is not meant to be. Bad economic conditions may create opportunities. People are los-ing their jobs; perhaps, you can focus on employment issues or employee benefits issues.

The key is to be a friend during hard times. When the econ-

omy turns, your friends will remember that you were there in their time of need.

in conclusion, you should get the most out of money you spend and find creative ways to market without spending much money. in turn, you can pass the savings on to your clients. hopefully, they will return the favor as the economy improves.

Ed Miller is the Chief Marketing Officerand Shana Gillis is the Marketing Manager of

Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, PA located in Bridgewater.

Marketing Tips in a Down Economy(Continued from page 26)