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EFFECTIVE MARKETING FOR THE COST-CONSCIOUS

Too many sets are missing the opportunities for online news and e-marketing

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Online news and e-marketing are generally neglected by the Bar. For chambers with the motivation, there is therefore plenty of opportunity to take advantage of a gap in the market.

LawComms surveyed all 252 chambers websites in June 2008 and found that of their Home Pages, 52% had nothing but static brochure-style information; they lacked even the simplest updates. One in five Bar websites lacked updates of any kind anywhere on the site.

HOW CHAMBERS WILL GAIN FROM ONLINE NEWS

Creating a powerful first impression with your Home Page is vital. To retain visitors, your Home Page needs to offer them interesting, relevant, material straightaway. Publishing online news makes this easy.

"The news section is an excellent window on the set's current work, reflecting our involvement in high profile cases", one senior clerk told me. "Our client contacts will probably look at our web site before calling the clerks or a barrister". Most clerks know that instructing solicitors are double-checking everything on line while on the phone to them.

Publishing well-presented up-to-date news stories on the Home Page keeps a website looking fresh. The Home Page will change as news is added, so that regular clients making successive visits will see something different each time.

And Google will also pick up references in news items, so that regular news updates will contribute to good positioning for chambers in search results.

COMMON PITFALLS

The majority of chambers' websites hide news and announcements, relegating them to another page, out of sight, where visitors are unlikely to see them.

Sometimes the menu on the Home Page included a link to "News" but in quite a few instances, news could be found only from a subsidiary page, such as "About Us", 2 or 3 clicks from the Home Page Most visitors will not wish to spend time casually browsing your site looking for news.

Another common mistake was the failure to update news. In the LawComms survey, only 86 of the 252 sites (34%) included recent items, published during the preceding month.

On many chambers' websites, June's latest "news" was hopelessly out of date. Frequently, the QC appointments announced in January or the "Chambers and Partners" and "Legal 500" legal directory recommendations published last autumn were the latest postings. Other examples included: "current" newsletter, published in spring 2006; requests for pupillage applications with a closing date months previously; invitations to seminars which had already taken place.

High-profile and well-resourced sets are not immune from problems. Of 22 winners of Chambers Bar Awards surveyed in September 2007, 3 sets had no news page at all, and 4 other sets have badly out-of-date news pages (for example with just one or two items from 2007, or in another instance, the top item dating from 2001).

Most sites featured only professional announcements (in the "Chambers congratulates..." style) or seminar details. Only about a quarter of news pages mentioned members' cases. Yet updates about members' cases provide the most effective way to demonstrate their skills and experience at a glance.

HOW CHAMBERS HAVE APPROACHED ONLINE NEWS

Integrating news into the design of the Home Page proves that the site - and the set - are up-to-date. A well-written headline will encourage visitors to read more.

Some sites use scrolling headlines (Brick Court is an example) but these can be too slow or too fast, take too long to load, or tell the visitor too little to tempt them to read the full story.

A better option uses a panel on the Home Page which carries a series of headlines with short summaries of each story, and a link to full information on a news page; 4 Brick Court is an example.

The third way allows news to fill the Home Page; 39 Essex Street and Tooks Court have adopted this approach. 5RB does this simply and dramatically. Some = such as Matrix - try to adopt the style of a magazine cover, looking busy and attractive, and providing users with quick access to the content that they need.

Some sets have opted to use a news feed from a third-party provider - presumably because there is no one in-house with the time to write material. This has a double disadvantage: it tells visitors nothing about the work and qualities of the set itself; and it tempts them to go off to another website to follow up a story.

OVERCOMING BARRIERS AND OBJECTIONS

Writing up a dummy news page, for internal use only, provides the ideal basis for discussion about how online news might benefit your chambers. What concerns are commonly expressed, and how can they be addressed?

"We do not have enough going on", one clerk told me: But the Patents Court listed 24 reported cases in the name of just one junior IP specialist at his set. Mentions need not be restricted to reported or even high-profile cases. It would be hard to imagine that any reasonably busy set could be short of cases to mention online.

"Many of our cases are very sensitive": But many will be in the public domain, and some will be reported in the media. Others - even advisory matters - can be mentioned as anonymised case studies. Barristers are already happy to list cases in their online profiles.

"We don't want to re-design our home page": One set I worked with had a news feature built into their home page design 2 years previously - but it had remained unused and hidden. In another case, minor inexpensive technical changes allowed news headlines and summaries to be added to the existing Home Page with links to details elsewhere.

"No-one has the time to do this": As a senior clerk said: "You have to undertake the same research anyway when you are preparing the Legal Directory submissions". Member profiles can also updated with the same material. The overall time commitment is likely to be just a couple of hours a month. And even this can delegated to people like LawComms.

"Members of chambers are not journalists - they're not going to able write news stories". Read the "How to write news" section for tips.

PRO-ACTIVE E-MARKETING

News on the website, however good, has to wait for users to visit it. Pro-active e-marketing can enhance the value of a newspage still further. Circulating an email, with links to a relevant news story, to key professional clients, media contacts, and opinion-formers will help keep the set's name in peoples' minds, generate positive publicity, and bring visitors to the website.

Using a website to spread information about case results and other developments provides a cost-effective easy-to-use marketing tool that can enable sets to gain significant competitive advantage. No news is bad news: sets lacking a good news page, and taking no steps to promote it, are missing a major opportunity to enhance their professional reputation.

FORTHCOMING SEMINAR IN MANCHESTER

Look out for the LawComms e-marketing seminar at Manchester's prestigious new 64 Bridge Street legal centre, in October 2008. To receive further details when available, please email LawComms.

© Gerald Newman
www.LawComms.com

14th July 2008

Contact LawComms: find out how we could help you make sure that your News Page is always interesting and up to date.