Without a plan the long tail of your marketing plan can get chopped off

Once again this week I’m reminded of why I own and control the blogging content I write. A potential client contacts me having found me on the Internet through a Google description to a link that no longer works. The link doesn’t work because the platform I was using then took down my content after we went our separate ways several years ago. When I left that group no one asked what I thought should happen to the content I'd written, no one sent me a disc with the content so that I could repost it and no one allowed me time to transfer the data. Spite? I’m not really sure you’d have to ask them. The fact I was driving 10,000 to 20,000 unique visitors a month might have something to do with it. Like I said you’d have to ask them.

The potential client was not able to read the entire blog, only the Meta data description Google still has in its giant memory. This is in part how the long tail of Internet marketing works. What is the long tail?

The long tail is your content working 24/7/365 times as many years as you’ve been writing content and posting it online. It’s a long tailing of information about those areas of the law that you practice and write about. Here are some links if you’re still scratching your head about the long tail. Link, link and link. I could go into a fishing analogy, but today I'm not willing to share that insight with you. Let's get back to how to protect your long tail.

The Internet marketers will tell you, and do tell us lawyers, that blogging is the new way to market for new clients. Well, it can be and then again it can be a complete waste of your time.  Most legal marketing companies can go on ad nauseam that each of their web sites is the Holy Grail that will lead lawyers to greener marketing pastures. It may be a marketing trail, but not all trails lead to salvation. Some in fact lead you to greater frustration and disappointment. Some just cost you time and money better spent on other forms of advertising. Do all blogs work to get clients crossing your threshold? Not really, especially not if what you do is just white noise. You have to control the content you put out there. Not them. Many of "them" aren't lawyers; you are the lawyer. They view their industry different than we do, but we hold the license to practice law and understand the law; they understand only how to market to lawyers, not the lay people who really are the potential clients.

What's missing in the markeing industry are real laywer marketers that blog for a living and who have real solutions, not just a platform for blogging. Some platforms work and some don’t; but like I said that's all for another day's discussion. Today let’s focus on how to protect your investment in what you’ve written. Here is what most don't tell you: They don't tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket. In fact most will tell you the exact opposite. Why? Because then, whether it works or not, you're married to the mob. Rule 1 is never put your eggs all in one basket.

What do I mean by not putting all your eggs in one basket?

Here is why you shouldn't put all your faith in a marketing program that controls the data and seems only to care about who's currently onboard providing a check every month. The main reason is because you don't control the content, meaning if you leave the platform they don't provide you with access to the digital files and a way to take the content with you to repost on another site. In fact if you're one of their more prolific bloggers they might be angry that you're leaving and refuse to cooperate when you leave. What that means is all your hard work goes right down the toilet. Or does it? It doesn’t have to if you’re thinking ahead. It doesn't have to if you protect yourself by protecting your content.

The Internet marketing industry is somewhat broken.

I would encourage all companies providing an internet blogging platform to work with bloggers on the transfer of content at the end of the relationship. To do otherwise is a rotten way to do business and long term it exposes a glaring weakness of the Internet platform groups offering legal marketing. If blogging for lawyers does work, then long term those creating and running these sites need to protect the general idea of group blogging instead of it being a here today gone tomorrow business model. I for one did like the people I met, the relationships I formed and the group coordinated content writing with lawyers that I wasn’t in competition with locally. That part was good; but that particular platform did not work to attract clients because there was too much extraneous marketing noise and not enough concentration to the subject matter. They cared more about rules than they did whether what we were writing actually attracted paying clients.

What's your content backup plan?

To avoid letting the conglomerate type of blogging platform ruin or even destroy your marketing efforts you need to establish a web site where you control the content and/or save all your work in well organized folders on your office computer backup system. All of my posts are saved as WORD documents on a server. As for the platforms I'm currently using, I use both Foster Legal Web Marketing with Tom Foster from Virginia and LexBlog with Kevin O'Keefe from Seattle. Both have platforms allowing you to control the content and to own the content that you write. Both companies seem to appreciate that even if our relationship were to end that there is nothing to be gained by them destroying the past content I've created through my blogging efforts. Some would call it being professional; others would say it's just good business. There is a level of professional respect that drives genuine value to lawyers and to a greater extent the legal profession in general.

Just because you wrote it doesn't mean you really control it. 

And that's really what you need to be concerned with. As a busy professional having put hundreds or even thousands of hours into marketing your legal product, why should you allow marketers that don't make a living by practicing law, control the long tail of your marketing program. You have to remain in control if Internet marketing is going to work for your firm. Remember that many of these law sites aren't run by practicing lawyers. They are operated by lawyers and non-lawyers that market for a living; they don’t practice law. That means they could care less if you're getting clients in your field of practice. Now I don’t believe that’s true about Kevin or Tom, but most of the others couldn’t care about anything other than whether you continue to send them a check every month. As I'm sure every practicing lawyer realizes there is a huge difference between attracting clients needing legal services in your area and those generating income by selling marketing web sites to lawyers. The marketers make money by convincing practicing lawyers to spend money blogging on their web sites; not in getting clients to your Main Street doorstep. After you blog for awhile you're appreciate why Silicon Valley isn’t in the same neighborhood as Main Street.

What should lawyers do to protect the long tail of their marketing program?  

Lawyers and especially large firms need to understand that owning your content and having access to it in a digital format at the end of your relationship is imperative in realizing the long term value of your investment. Your time blogging and adding content to your site, like news items and links is an investment of your time in marketing your practice. Lose the content and you've lost all those hours and effort on your part. So rewrite the contract if you have to and back up your content on a server that is backed up on the cloud.

Some companies like to tell you to be a successful legal marketer all you need to do is write content for their site, post it and then forget about it. They would love it if you didn't secure your content and were beholding to continue to send them a monthly check for a continued listing on their site. And that's true even if it doesn't work in getting clients. Send us your M-O-N-E-Y! Fear is the name of the game and that's what fuels many of these large non-lawyer sites that make money off of the efforts of practicing lawyers. If we were to peel away the skin of this marketing animal you’d soon see that many of these platforms don’t work for the end user – the lawyer. Unique visitors doesn’t equate to a potential client calling your office. Just because you write what interests you doesn’t mean it’s what is of interest to potential clients. Again that’s a rather lengthy discussion and we'd better save it for another day.

How did I avoid the long tail of my marketing efforts being cut off? 

In my situation I left the InjuryBoard and without warning they took down my firm's content. That kind of sucked. But I had a backup plan in place. I figured alright fine, I can live with that because I had most of the content already on another site. What they didn't seem to realize was that I had been double posting it with Foster's product so the effect on my marketing plan was negligible. Fact of the matter is it actually helped my marketing plan. How? Nah, I’m not willing to go there just yet. I can’t give my competitors all my secrets. 

By them removing the content I'd created it could have destroyed several years’ worth of my blog marketing efforts. And that's what brings us back to the long tail of marketing. You want content to cover every conceivable situation that will generate a potential client for your firm. So you see, that long tail is very important. Today I'm reminded of this because of the contact by this man's relatives. That man died in 2007 in a motorcycle accident that I blogged about back in 2007. The long tail of my blogging and their desire to speak with me directed them to my firm’s doorstep.  

CONCLUSION

So protect your content, own it and back it up. At the inception of your relationship enter into an agreement to own it and to get a copy of it should your relationship ever end. Agree to disagree should your relationship end, but move on in a professional manner.

RECOMMENDED LEGAL MARKETERS

Who do I know that respects my efforts? I'd recommend Tom Foster or Kevin O'Keefe and I suspect you can call upon Colin O'Keefe or Ken Pearce at Foster as well. And good luck with the long tail of your marketing program!