One of the toughest things about putting together a marketing plan is figuring out how you'll organize your team and put it all together.  Because smaller law firms often use attorneys and other staff members to cover some marketing responsibilities, it's quite possible that the people involved on your marketing team aren't full time marketing professionals and aren't used to organizing whole campaigns.  This guide will give you some tips on how you can make your marketing efforts more efficient and organized, making it much easier and faster for you to put together the marketing campaigns you're dreaming about.

Tip #1: Delegate Responsibilities and Make Goals

If it's too much work for one person, you're not helping anyone by trying to do it all yourself.  Put together a team of people who can work on your marketing campaigns, and look at what strengths each individual team member brings to the table.  Delegate specific responsibilities, and make sure that this delegation of responsibilities is written down and emailed to everyone after the meeting is over.

You'll want to make sure that every person has set goals and a set time to achieve them by.  If people have a delegated responsibility but no set goals, it's likely that they'll get bogged down in details.

Tip #2: Budget Enough Time

This is a place where many marketing plans start falling apart.  If you start with a schedule that's too optimistic, and don't budget enough time, soon you'll be falling behind.  When you fall behind, you start leaving parts out of your marketing plan, and it usually won't be the parts that you can most afford to lose.

Be realistic when you set your initial time expectations for your projects, for every team member, and if it's a task they've never performed before make sure that they have some additional time built in.  This will help prevent people from becoming overwhelmed, which can sometimes lead to marketing tasks being neglected.

Tip #3: Make Schedules For Every Marketing Team Member

Make sure that every person who is doing something for marketing has a schedule.  While you don't need to make it a schedule with specific times for specific activities, it should at least show what days, weeks, and months the person's marketing duties should be performed, and how long they're supposed to spend on those duties.

Everyone receiving a schedule should have input into it, and they should also be made aware that the schedules aren't set in stone.  It's much better to have some schedule flexibility, in case it turns out that part of your marketing plan is working significantly better or worse than you had anticipated.  Just make sure that people know that if the schedule isn't working out, they should come back and figure out one that will, rather than just letting work fall by the wayside.

Tip #4: Get Software To Make You More Efficient

Purchasing some software packages can make it significantly more easy for you to do the kind of marketing you want to do in the time you have to do it.  For example, if you download software that helps you post to social media websites and keep track of what people are saying about you on social networks, you'll be saving a great deal of time over using each site individually and trying to search for mentions of your own firm's name.

If some part of your day seems like it's being wasted on website inefficiency, it's a good thing to ask whether there's some software that can actually help out and make it easier for you.  You're probably not the first or the last person to have a problem like yours, and programs will often exist for the exact problem you're having.

Tip #5: Do Analytics On a Scheduled Basis

You should periodically analyze your marketing campaigns to make sure that they're working according to plan.  Online marketing makes this particularly easy, with programs like Google Analytics.  Too often, analytics is the first thing that falls by the wayside when people get busy with other aspects of their job.

This is a huge mistake: you won't know how to achieve your goals if you don't look back and see how well you've done with techniques you've already tried.  Your data is incredibly valuable—by just letting it languish without paying any attention to it, you're wasting time and money.  Using your data effectively means that when you spend money on marketing and advertising, you're spending it on the right sites, the right times, the right demographics.  Without those analytics, you're like someone fumbling in the dark toward a good idea.  Let analytics be your flashlight.

Tip #6: Think Like a Scientist (A/B Testing)

A hallmark of the scientific method is also part of today's online marketing world.  A/B testing is basic experimentation in a scientific way.  The biggest part of A/B testing that it's important for marketers to get right is the idea of changing only a single variable at a time.  If you change multiple variables at once, you won't know which one actually affected your conversion numbers, bounce rate, or anything else you decide to test for.

It may seem a little monotonous to only change one thing at a time, but in the end, you'll have significantly better data to work with.  Your data is much less likely to lead you to the wrong conclusion when you're rigorous in your A/B testing.

Tip #7: Get Regular Progress Updates

Members of your marketing team, once they have goals and schedules, should be prepared to send regular progress reports that tell you how close they're coming to achieving their goals.  This way, if someone starts to fall behind, you can figure it out quickly and re-budget time more realistically.

Once a week should usually be enough for progress updates, and someone with a minor or specialized role may only need to update the team every two or four weeks.  Regardless, make sure there is a progress updating schedule so that everyone knows who's doing what and how much work has already been done.

One of the most successful television and film franchises of all time, Star Trek has an obsessive fan base and stories that are often timeless.  In this guide, we'll take a look at lessons that law firms can learn from the show's characters or its marketing—lessons that are just as useful in today's pre-warp society as they are in the future of the Federation.

#1: Pick Your Team Wisely

There have been several different Star Trek series, and while fans often debate which one is best, their debates tend to focus on one main thing: more than the plots of the episodes, fans care about the characters and their dynamics.  That's why, while some fans will agitate for the Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic and others will wax rhapsodic over the Picard leadership style, almost no one advocates for Voyager, which had a team that lacked cohesion.

The best Star Trek crews have members that balance each other out.  Having a crew of all Spocks would likely lead to significant problems, but so would a crew of all Kirks—put together, they're a dynamic command duo that can respond to almost any problem.  When it comes to choosing law firm partners, keep this kind of balancing act in mind.  Often, having someone as a partner who balances out the qualities of the other partners is a better move than choosing someone who is a lot like the people already in partnership positions.

#2: Have Your Own Prime Directive

In Starfleet, the Prime Directive is not to become involved with societies that haven't yet discovered faster-than-light travel technologies.  This Prime Directive is important because Starfleet doesn't view itself as having a mission to interfere in societal development of very early societies—they want to be recognized as equals or near-equals, not gods.

Law firms have different priorities from Starfleet, of course, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a Prime Directive.  What is the one thing that is at the base of your firm's ethical code?  It's a good thing to think about—the ethical principles that unite your firm and are a value you'd like every attorney to uphold.  By having your own Prime Directive, you ensure that your firm's culture is built around this ethical commitment.

#3: Strong Leadership Matters

On Star Trek, leadership is key to mission success, and leaders must take responsibility for the people under their command.  In many situations, the captain of the ship can even be punished for actions taken by an underling.

The same holds true in law offices.  If an attorney or even a legal secretary makes a bad mistake, the people who will be held responsible aren't just the people who made the mistake—they're also the principals of the firm.  Because of this, it's critical for people who are in charge at your firm to know what's going on and present strong leadership skills.  Without them, you're much more likely to have personnel who break the rules and cause embarrassment to your firm.

#4: Push the Boundaries

One of the reasons that Star Trek has enduring cultural relevance is that it has often taken social issues into account and pushed boundaries in the topics it covers.  In the same way, taking cases at your firm that push the boundaries and are in territory other people have barely covered is a great way to get your name out there and start getting the kind of recognition you want.  When you go “where no one has gone before,” other people can't help sitting up and taking notice.

#5: Know the Value of Your Fan Base

Initially, when Star Trek fans began having conventions, Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock, was irritated by the way that many of his fans conflated him and his character.  He penned an autobiography entitled “I Am Not Spock” to clarify who he was as a human being.  However, years later, he became more willing to engage with fan communities and wrote a second autobiography, this one called “I Am Spock.”

Your loyal clients are your fan base, and it's important to cater to them in ways that make them likely not only to continue being your fans, but also to bring new fans into the fold.  Having a great base of loyal clients will keep your firm going even through tough times, while if you're just depending on ads and clients who come in for a single case, you are likely to have significantly more volatility in your levels of new business.

#6: Don't Try to Change the Past

In several different Star Trek episodes and movies, someone changes the past, often trying to make it better.  However, changing the past is almost always an incredibly dangerous and foolhardy thing to do, full of unexpected consequences.  In the real world, of course, you can't change the past—but that doesn't stop a lot of people from dwelling on their previous mistakes and wasting time wishing that they could have done things in the past differently.

The past is over and done with, and you can't change it—what's more, you probably wouldn't really want to.  Instead, focus on going forward, and resolving the situation using the tools at your disposal (which probably don't include any time machines).

#7: Don't Underestimate Your Rivals

Often, the Enterprise ends up in the biggest trouble when its captain underestimates a threat or responds to it too late to solve it easily.  When you market your law firm, it's important not to underestimate your competition or assume that they aren't capable of using the same strategies as you are.

Whenever you're implementing a new marketing strategy, try to stay several steps ahead of your rivals by thinking of ways that they might respond and how you can, in turn, respond to that response.  For example, you may want to think about what you would do if your rival's response to a successful new way of marketing your firm was simply to start using that same method themselves.

His name is synonymous with Elizabethan times.  So why would any legal marketer look to the Bard of Avon when trying to create a marketing plan?  Think again: Shakespeare has one of the most enduring brands of all time.  If you want your legal marketing to stand the test of time, you can do worse than to think about how Shakespeare's lessons apply today.  In this guide, we'll look at wisdom from the Bard's life and plays that can put your law firm on top of the marketing heap.

#1: Know Thy Audience—And Play To the Cheap Seats

In his time, Shakespeare's plays were beloved by all, from the poor, who occupied places close to the stage, to the Queen herself.  No one knew this better than Shakespeare, who made sure that his plays were created with his audience in mind.  Shakespeare today may seem like a playwright whose language is tough to unravel, but in his day, he was speaking with the vocabulary of the common people.

Shakespeare is great proof that even when you're talking about important and nuanced aspects of the human condition, you can still talk to regular people and even make them laugh from time to time.  Legal marketers need to learn this lesson: you don't need to be stuffy to talk about the law, even when the legal issues are very important.  Being conversational and interesting will always keep an audience longer than stuffed-shirt seriousness.  A well-placed quip or two can bring a smile to a potential client's face without being flippant about the legal issues at hand.

Don't be afraid to talk to the people who are really your clients.  If you know that your clients are, on average, high school graduates but not college graduates, you should make sure that you're actually speaking with terms that everyone reading your site can understand.  This doesn't mean talking down to anyone—it means relating and being someone that your audience feels can understand their concerns and lives.

#2: Get People Speaking Your Language

From “eyeball” to “lonely,” many words we take for granted in the English language today were actually coined by Shakespeare.  He also created great turns of phrase that have become part of our lexicon.  You don't have to be Shakespeare to use language inventively.  Framing the issues your way, and making sure that the way you frame the issues drives clients straight to your office, is critical to getting conversions from your website content.

Make sure that your language plays to your strengths and sounds a lot like how you actually speak.  People tend to naturally mimic a strong linguistic style, so by speaking in your own unique way in your content, you automatically make people think a little bit more like you.

#3: Everybody Has a Story—And Great Stories Stick

Shakespeare mostly told stories of great kings and nobility, but the plays tell the stories of other characters as well.  Even minor characters in Shakespeare plays are often very memorable, because each of them has enough characterization to be real and recognizable, even hundreds of years later.  Did you know that the page people are most likely to convert after reading is your attorney biography page?  That's why it's absolutely mission critical to make sure that you're telling real, interesting stories about each of your attorneys.

Dry titles, memberships, and degrees can be important to some people, so you should make sure they're included somewhere on your biography page.  However, consider having them in a side column or as bullet points after a more narrative biography.  Don't just tell the basics of your attorneys' lives.  Talk about their origins, their hopes, their motivations.  The more that you can make lawyers into relatable human beings, the more likely it is that a potential client will call you instead of your competitors.

#4: Draw From The Past, Use Your Own Twist

Students are often surprised to learn that Shakespeare didn't really invent the vast majority of the stories he told.  Instead, he drew inspiration from great stories of the past, and added his own style to them.  The same is true for law firm websites.  You don't need to reinvent the wheel in order to create a memorable site that has a high conversion rate.

This means that you probably shouldn't try a crazy new introduction for your website that takes 30 minutes, or turn your attorney biographies into an alternate reality game—stick to the basic format of websites that work, because consumers know how to navigate those basic structures, in the same way that Shakespeare's audiences knew the basics of the stories he was telling.  Then, be inventive within those structures—get creative in how you link to videos and integrate multimedia aspects of your website.

#5: Be Willing to Evolve With the Times

Shakespeare's work from the earliest parts of his career looks very different from what he wrote later on.  That's because he was evolving in response to what people asked of him and what the changing demands of the times were.  Today, audience demands change more quickly than ever, but we're lucky—we also have the ability to analyze our audience and determine what's working in a much more scientific and accurate way than Shakespeare could ever have imagined.  Make sure that you're monitoring trends and your own progress so that you know when it's time to evolve and what direction is most productive to evolve in.

#6: Know Your Flaws, Or Be Destroyed By Them

Shakespeare's tragic figures all have flaws, and in the end, those flaws lead to disaster and ruin.  However, what many people don't talk about is that these flaws destroy the characters precisely because the characters are not aware of their flaws.  Many of Shakespeare's comedic characters are flawed just as much, but they tend to recognize those flaws and work with them.  Learn from their example: no one's perfect, and when you know what your law firm's weak spots are, you'll be better at both working around them and working to improve them in the future.

Most attorneys today know that specialization is the watchword when it comes to practice areas.  But did you know that specialization can be just as important when it comes to your marketing plan?  Figuring out who you want to be online and where you want to focus your marketing dollars will decide what kind of plan your law firm should develop.  In this guide, we'll explore different ways for your marketing to become specialized and work better for your firm.  Remember that doing one type of marketing really well will almost always give you better results than trying to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

#1: The Social Butterfly

Social networking websites have exploded onto the internet scene in recent years, and with good reason.  They allow people to connect with friends, relatives, and business networking connections.  What's more, they're an incredible platform for targeted marketing and advertising.

If you decide to be a Social Butterfly, you should be active on several different social networking websites.  While it's a good idea to use paid advertising on a number of these sites (and many offer very specific and selective targeting options), it's an even better idea to take advantage of what they offer for free.  Rather than advertising, consider social media channels to be a place where you can show your brand personality and build customer relationships.  The Social Butterfly doesn't need to talk him or herself up all the time directly—instead, by being friendly and building relationships online, they make it easier to get referrals and new business.

#2: The Vocal Local

Vocal Locals know that most of their clients aren't just searching for “employment lawyer” or “bankruptcy attorney.”  They're searching for “employment lawyer in Richmond” or “bankruptcy attorney in Seattle.”  What's more, the Vocal Local knows that search engines today are smarter than ever: they actually check to see whether you've got backlinks from just generic websites, or actual local websites that are important to your community.

The Vocal Local doesn't just advertise and market his or her services online.  Instead, they know that they need to get out into the world and get involved, and view their online marketing as an extension of their real world presence in their local community.  Becoming a Vocal Local means looking for local websites where you can build backlinks, and making sure that you're getting press coverage in local media.  These things will all help you to build your search rank and become more easily visible to potential clients.

#3: The Big Bad Blogger

Some of the most successful attorney marketing strategies in the last several years have come when lawyers have a truly great idea for a blog.  If you want to be a Big Bad Blogger, you need to make sure that you're not just copying an idea for a blog from someone else.  You'll want to say something that's actually unique and interesting.

Big Bad Bloggers don't just blog on their own website.  They take guest blogging opportunities (and make guest blogging opportunities on their blog for other people), and they make real comments on other people's blogs, not just link spam.  A Big Bad Blogger can end up getting media appearances and incredibly good publicity, all with a free blogging website.  This is one of the best forms of legal marketing, but it's not for everyone: if you don't have a good idea, or you don't think you'll be able to consistently update a blog with fresh, interesting content that keeps people coming back, you should probably try a different marketing specialization strategy.

#4: The Backlinks Broker

Backlinks Brokers know that the best way to move ahead in search rankings is to have quality backlinks.  Backlinks Brokers may have used low quality backlinks in the past, when those still worked to generate good results in searches, but they know that times have changed.  With Google Penguin and Google Panda killing off most search results from websites that used easy to get, contextless backlinks, today's Backlink Broker is prepared to make their backlinks contextual and high quality.

Today, the Backlinks Broker can be found actively creating relationships with people who run other websites, trying to get backlinks on various sites. The Backlinks Broker may comment on some blogs and social media postings.  However, a good Backlinks Broker will make sure that their comments never appear to be spam or direct advertising.  Instead, keep it subtle, and make sure you're providing good information and a real reason for people to want to follow the backlinks that you're creating.

#5: The Storyteller

Attorneys are often talented storytellers, especially trial attorneys.  This is one reason that as a lawyer, you might want to consider making your marketing personality The Storyteller.  Storytellers use their powerful storytelling primarily on their website, and then use that storytelling to captivate potential clients.  By telling stories on your website of how you have worked for your clients, and showing your audience a narrative point of view, you'll make them substantially more likely to see you as a human being—easier to call, easier to schedule a consultation with.

Storytellers may need to use paid advertising and marketing to get people to notice their website.  Contextual, targeted advertising can be one great way to make sure that you're only getting your ad in front of the people who are most likely to want to see it.

#6: The Vigilant Analyst

Another way to market your services is to start with your existing marketing plan, then work on analyzing it.  The Vigilant Analyst is constantly checking where people are clicking from and thinking about how to make sure that those strengths are catered to.

Vigilant Analysts tend to be the types of attorneys who are more quantitatively based—the ones who don't mind crunching numbers and dealing with large sets of data.  Typically, Storytellers and Vigilant Analysts are not the same people, although when an analyst can also tell amazing stories, it's a recipe for an unbeatable website that will garner conversions consistently.

We've all said things we wish we could take back, and we've all made mistakes.  Unfortunately, on the internet, those mistakes can stick.  When you've messed up online, you need to get fast help to make sure that you're making the problem better, not worse.  Many of the ways that companies respond to criticisms online are not productive and could actually damage your firm's reputation over the long run.  In this guide, we'll look at the importance of damage control, and several methods that will make it easier for you next time you stick your foot in your mouth.

#1: Act Fast—But Not Too Fast

There are two big timing mistakes that companies tend to make when they've committed an online faux pas.  If you tend to be avoidant, it's easy to try to avoid the reality of an unfortunate mistake for so long that it blows up much bigger than it needed to.  Don't compound a mistake by being slow to address it, or by burying your head in the sand in hopes that it will all go away.  Confront the mistake and really look at what the best damage control message will be for your firm.

However, some law firms can make the opposite mistake by being impulsive and making a move too fast.  If you know you screwed up, own up to it, but keep in mind that sometimes, issues might be so minor that people are ready to move on practically as fast as they latched onto the issue in the first place.  Doing extensive damage control in these situations is simply unnecessary.

#2: Avoid the Streisand Effect

The “Streisand Effect” was named for an incident in which Barbra Streisand tried so hard to have people not talk about her in a critical way that her efforts themselves became the object of public ridicule.  Trying to hide something that you've done wrong, or trying to silence critics, will almost always have a negative effect on your overall bottom line.  Don't try to tell people what they can and can't say about you—they'll say it anyhow, because it's a great big internet out there.  You're much better off politely addressing criticisms, however rude they may be.

#3: Don't Be Afraid of the “S” Word

No, not that “s” word—the other one.  “Sorry.”  Sometimes, a well-placed mea culpa, when it's sincere and coming from a place of reconciliation, not spite, can be the best way to avoid additional problems with an angry former client or business associate.  Some attorneys are reluctant to apologize, perhaps because of the times when apologizing can put people into legal trouble.  However, you need to remember that “sorry” isn't a dirty word, and that for the non-lawyers in the populace, it's much more likely to result in the other person relaxing than it is to result in them attacking you even more.

#4: Make It Right

If all you did was say something slightly insensitive, an apology will probably cover the faux pas.  If you did something substantially worse, apologies may not cut it—you need to work on making it right.  What making it right will mean in your particular case will depend on the circumstances.  It could be anything from making a charitable donation to reducing a client's bill to sending a small apology gift.  Keep the person's personality in mind as well as the extent of the original damage when trying to apologize—you don't want to insult someone who could continue to be a referral source or a client in the future.

#5: Remember: The Internet's Memory is Short

Even if it seems like you can't do enough damage control and everyone is talking about your firm in a negative light, don't despair too much.  Keep in mind that people online usually spend just a little while being angry about one issue, then move on to the next big thing.  It's very rare for people to continue latching on to a single piece of negative publicity.  Sometimes, by just riding out the storm, you'll be able to preserve your firm's reputation without doing much at all.

If this is your chosen method, stick to it.  Don't go engaging your critics in repeated debates—that will only inflame their passions and make them substantially more likely to continue criticizing you.  The internet's hate machine eventually runs out of steam—you can pull through if you just keep on doing good work.

#6: Consider Reputation Management

Software and consultants exist that can help your firm understand its current reputation and what to do to improve it.  If you've recently suffered from a major blow due to a public relations problem, you may want to hire reputation management consultants to help you get back on your feet.  These consultants can help you by looking at the specifics of your situation and giving you specific recommendations about how to proceed in order to begin the process of regaining the reputation you once had.

If your reputation is worrying you even before there has been a specific faux pas committed, reputation management software can help you keep an eye on what people are saying about you.  This will also ensure that you're finding out about mistakes as soon as people notice them—rather than hearing about them third or fourth-hand through the grapevine.

#7: Create a Prevention Plan

It's not enough to just make sure that you've appropriately apologized and moved on from a mistake in the present.  In order to ensure that people can trust you, you should make sure that you create an action plan based on preventing similar mistakes from happening in the future.  Maybe from now on, you'll want to make sure that social media updates or website revisions go through two or three sets of eyes before being posted.  Perhaps your firm will no longer discuss things related to a particular topic online.

Whatever your solution is, implement it, inform all firm staff about it, and stick to it.  Almost anyone can make a mistake once, but making the same mistake twice is the sign of a sloppy firm—not the kind of reputation that you want to have in the super-competitive 21^st century legal services market.

Let's face it: it's not an easy time to enter the legal profession.  Recent law school grads have faced unprecedented amounts of unemployment in the field—in some states, like California, as few as one third of law school grads have jobs a year after graduation.  If you've decided to hang a shingle in response to the sluggish economy, you already know you're facing an uphill battle.  This guide will help you put together a marketing plan that will get you a head start in the law firm game.  Plenty of attorneys can be successful at marketing their own firm—if they keep these simple rules in mind, they'll be well ahead of their competition.

#1: Know The Laws About Advertising In Your State

It's critical when you're getting started with a marketing plan to understand how the laws regarding legal marketing and advertising in your state will affect what you can and can't do.  You don't want to face a reprimand from the bar association because you've violated the law.  Most state bar associations publish guidelines about what kinds of advertising attorneys are allowed to use, and what kinds of statements can appear in those advertisements.

Because state laws can vary significantly, you may face additional issues if your practice straddles a state line and you're licensed to practice in multiple states.  If you're ever in doubt about an advertising issue, most bar associations offer free guidance to attorneys who have questions.  It's better to ask your bar association than to make a costly mistake that damages your bottom line and your professional reputation.

#2: Understand Your Location And How It Affects Marketing

Not all locations are the same when it comes to law firm marketing strategies.  In order to be a successful new attorney, you'll need to give some thought to how the unique features of your location will affect how you should market your practice.  For example, if you live in an economically depressed area and your law firm is in a low income neighborhood, you may want to base your marketing materials on price points.  In places where there are a lot of technologically inclined young people, online marketing is more important than in areas where the population is largely aging with low levels of computer literacy.

#3: Don't Be Afraid To Go Offline

If you're only working on online marketing, you're losing half the battle already.  Don't hinder yourself by staying too much in the virtual world.  It's critical to get into your community and actually interact with the people in it.  When you start to market in the offline world, whether by talking to people at seminars and in community groups, or by sponsoring local events or teams, you're making the kinds of connections that can lead to trusted referrals.

#4: Watch Court Cases and Successful Attorneys

One of the best things that you can do for your career as a new lawyer is to watch masters at work.  If your practice ever involves courtroom work—and if you're hanging your shingle, it should, at least some of the time—you need to understand how to interact with your local judges and who the best attorneys are in your area.  This kind of reconnaissance can ensure that you have the best possible chance of winning cases for your clients right off the bat.

There's no substitute for real courtroom experience, but watching trials is really the second best thing.  By watching, you can see what to do and what not to do in a way that will stick with you.  You may even be able to make connections with people in the legal industry who can advance your career.

#5: Take On Pro Bono Work

If you're not finding a lot of paying clients and you can afford to keep the lights on a while longer, try taking some work for free.  This can make it so that you have the kinds of client testimonials and experience that paying clients will take into account when choosing who to hire.  Make sure that you're not taking on so much pro bono work that you don't have time for paying clients if they happen to come along.  At the same time, don't be too proud to work for free—often, a client who has no money may still be able to give a referral to your firm to people who can pay.

#6: Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

Whether you're being paid for your work or not, you should never take a case that you don't actually know how to handle.  Learning on the job is one thing, but making mistakes in the law can be incredibly serious for clients and attorneys alike.  Make sure that you have a good grasp on the law surrounding your client's case before deciding to take them on.  If you don't, you could find yourself overwhelmed and unable to continue representing your client.

#7: Find A Good Partner

While being a lone wolf may sound appealing, many attorneys find that they have more success starting out with one or more partners.  Having partners can mean an ability to specialize in a wider range of cases without sacrificing understanding of the law.  Make sure that if you find a partner, you clearly discuss your expectations for the partnership ahead of time—a bad partner can be significantly worse than none at all.

#8: Make Customer Service Your Top Priority

Even following every piece of marketing advice won't get you the kind of response that you want—unless you also follow good business practices.  Customer service is critical to keeping clients and finding new ones.  Make sure that you're putting your all into customer service on a daily basis.  Often, the little things, like making yourself available at more hours than your competition, can set you apart in a way that will help you get more clients in the future.

There's no single perfect marketing plan that will work for every single law firm in every specialty area.  However, there are many ways to create a marketing plan that will never—or almost never—work for your firm.  In this guide, we'll take a look at seven different ways that many law firms mess up their marketing plans.  These common pitfalls can bring down even an otherwise good marketing plan, so make sure you check this guide before deciding to implement a new strategy.

#1: Set Unrealistic Expectations

One of the worst things that attorneys can do in their marketing plans is to set expectations that they have no way of achieving.  Unrealistic expectations are almost always caused by attorneys who don't take the market into account.  This is 2013, not 2007—you can't expect to have the same business levels today that you might have had if your firm started out years ago.  Right now, many attorneys are competing for a limited number of clients, and you'll need to understand that to plan effectively.

Unrealistic expectations can also be reflected in attorneys who think that they can outcompete much more experienced competitors without anything value added.  You'll need to work extremely hard to build your business at the start—it's a very unrealistic expectation to think that you can implement a marketing plan at a new law firm without working long hours.

#2: Do It All Yourself

There's no need to do all of your marketing work on your own.  It can often be a good idea to consult with a marketing firm to help you implement your marketing plan.  If your firm is too small to hire a part or full time social media coordinator or marketing director, you should consider discussing your needs with marketing firms that specialize in helping attorneys market their services.

Doing everything on your own may seem like a good way to save money, but the truth is that it can often end up costing much more in the long run.  The difference is in lost business.  While you're still using trial and error to figure out how to make your marketing plan work, a firm that used a marketing firm to help them will already have taken off and will be well ahead of you in search rankings.

#3: Use Puffery and Overselling

New attorneys are often tempted to oversell their experience, making a few months of a law school clinical experience seem like a full time job with extensive experience.  In addition to being unethical, this kind of puffery is likely to lead to clients being dissatisfied.

There's nothing wrong with just starting out—you're better off being honest about being young and new than having it found out later.  You can't fool all of the people all of the time, and you're better off underselling yourself and impressing your clients beyond what they could have expected.

#4: Rely Exclusively on Paid Ads and Paid Search

When attorneys begin using online marketing techniques, they often initially rely on paid advertisements through search keywords.  However, if you rely completely on these methods for your marketing, you will soon find that they may not be as fruitful as you had hoped.  Only a small number of people actually click through paid search advertisements.  Organic search results are much more effective over the long haul.

However, they're also harder to get.  This means that the ideal strategy involves initially buying a larger number of paid ads, and then slowly ramping down your paid advertising keyword presence as your website becomes better in organic search results.

#5: Keep Your Website The Same

One of the ways that Google can evaluate a website for quality content is by checking when the website was most recently updated.  If your website is kept the same for a very long time, you'll have several problems.  For one thing, clients may see an older website without recent updates as being, for all intents and purposes, dead—they may wonder if you're even still available to call.  It's also important to make sure that you're updating any time the law changes, so that you're not giving potential clients outdated or possibly misleading information.

Second, when Google sees that someone has not updated their website in some time, it starts lowering your search rankings in favor of content that is more recently updated.  This means that you'll slowly decline in popularity compared to your competitors—and that's a surefire route toward a law firm that can't remain competitive in the increasingly tight legal market.

#6: Be Boring and Generic

The best way to have a marketing plan fail in 2013 is to look and sound exactly like everybody else.  Without any kind of brand presence that makes you unique, your marketing plan will be dead on arrival.  You need to focus on something that makes you who you are, whether that's your specific experience, a legal specialty that you focus on, or the great customer service and business practices at your firm.  Boring websites and boring marketing won't attract customers—don't waste your time or money creating something uncreative.

#7:  Bury Your Head in the Sand

You should routinely do analytics on your web marketing strategies so that you can see what's working and what isn't.  If you're burying your head in the sand, rather than trying to listen to the feedback you're getting both implicitly and explicitly, you'll be setting yourself up for a failing marketing plan.

Burying your head in the sand can often take the form of simply assuming that your fantastic marketing idea is working, even without any direct evidence that this is so.  Don't let your confirmation bias get in the way of the facts—the sooner your analytics prove something is or isn't working, the more confidence you'll have in the next decisions you make about your marketing plan.

With the law school class of 2013 graduating in the next few weeks and a still-sluggish hiring climate, chances are that more than a few law school grads will spend the next few months watching lawyer movies and dreaming of hanging a shingle.  If you're thinking about taking the plunge into working for yourself, you could do worse than to watch the movies on this list.  Each of these movies has something to teach the aspiring solo practitioner—hunker down with a bucket of popcorn and learn while you watch.

#1: My Cousin Vinny: Be Prepared

This comedy involved one of the funniest courtroom scenes in all lawyer movies, and the reason for the humor is simple: an underprepared attorney.  While it's unlikely that you'd ever show up to court in a red velvet wedding usher suit, the nightmare of ending up in front of a judge without having done your homework is one that all too many young attorneys experience at least once in reality when they're starting out.

In order to make sure that you're not putting your foot in your mouth when a client's money or freedom is on the line, make sure that any time you go into the courtroom, you've prepared your case and know the law backwards and forwards.  Skimping on sleep is almost always a better strategy than skimping on trial preparation, if you're a young attorney.

#2: Erin Brockovich: Don't Disrespect Your Staff

One of the biggest lessons from this film involves Julia Roberts' role as the title character.  Roberts plays a paralegal who, in the end of the film, is responsible for leading to a huge multi-million dollar settlement for her firm's clients.  However, throughout the film, she is often dismissed because of her appearance and her perceived sexuality and lack of education.

Just because your law firm staff didn't go to law school doesn't mean that they aren't intelligent or can't have well formed opinions about the law.  Many of the people you're working with as staff may have as much or more experience with some aspects of the law as you do, and by devaluing their contributions, you may end up losing out on expertise that could have come in handy.

In fact, it's generally a good idea to be good to everybody—whether they're a paralegal or the janitor who comes in and vacuums up the floors late at night in your office.  It costs nothing to be nice, and in the end, your kindness is likely to lead to a better reputation and higher staff morale.

#3: Inherit the Wind: Know What Doesn't Matter

In Inherit the Wind, attorney Clarence Darrow represents his client, a teacher accused of teaching evolution in contravention of state law, for no money.  What's often forgotten is that he does, in fact, lose the case, and his client is required to pay the $100 minimum fine designated by law.  So—he lost, right?

Not from a marketing perspective, he didn't.  While Darrow only took a few cases after the Scopes trial, his star never shone brighter and he became one of America's most famed and celebrated trial lawyers.  Clarence Darrow knew that sometimes, being on the right side and being public about it can win you business even when the case wins you nothing at all.  It's not always about the money you're making today, or even whether you get the verdict you'd have preferred most.  It's not always about winning or losing.  Sometimes, it's just about getting your name into the right places and having it heard by the right people.

#4: And Justice For All: Know When To Turn Down Clients

With Al Pacino chewing up the scenery, this courtroom drama conceals a very clear lesson for new attorneys: know when you're not going to be able to represent a client.  In this film, Pacino's character represents someone so odious that he's forced, for the sake of his own sanity, to repudiate him in the courtroom.  Too many solo practitioners, when they're just getting started, feel the need to take just about anyone who walks through the door.  That's a fast route to burnout and to not doing the job for your clients that they need you to do.

You're better off letting some clients go than committing to clients who you will be unable to service effectively.

#5: 12 Angry Men: Understand What Juries Really Do

While 12 Angry Men is an older film, it actually may have more relevance today than ever.  In this movie, the jurors become involved in investigating the case from the jury room—a clearly illegal situation, but one which is allowed to happen in the play with no intervention from the judge or attorneys involved.

Today, the internet has made it easier than ever for jury members to do their own outside research.  Don't assume that juries are following the rules.  If you know that people can find certain information online, it may be best to make sure that you're inoculating juries against that information before they find out about it without hearing it from your side first.

#6: The Lincoln Lawyer: Do More With Less

In this film, Matthew McConaughey works out of the back of his vehicle, creating a kind of mobile law office.  For attorneys who are hanging their shingle in the middle of the current shaky legal hiring climate, this can be a great lesson—you can start with almost nothing and still get the case that will make your career.  You don't need to have money for a gorgeous corner office in a perfect neighborhood to be able to start your own solo practice.  All you need is ingenuity and a willingness to build your business from the bottom up.

#7: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: Be Part of the Community

This John Ford western stars Jimmy Stewart as attorney Ransom Stoddard, who tries to hang his shingle in a frontier town.  He quickly finds that in the Wild West, the law requires more than textbooks.  What he also discovers is that a lawyer who isn't really part of the community won't be accepted and won't get new business.  Only after Stoddard's character proves himself to be on the side of the townspeople does he become a man with a great reputation and a political future.  Young attorneys need to be in their community, not set apart from it.

If you're a plaintiff side labor and employment attorney, you may be looking for new ways to pursue your marketing plan.  In today's economy, it's more important than ever to have innovative ways to find new clients.  Fortunately for attorneys, the economy today has also led to employers slacking when it comes to following employment regulations—which means that business could be booming, if you know how to drum it up.  In this guide, we'll explore some strategies for employment attorneys who want to build a client base and grow their labor law practice.  Make sure before using any of these strategies that your state bar association allows these methods, and verify that any language you use in marketing materials is legal according to your state bar.

#1: Employment Law Information Sessions

One of the best ways to get new business for employment attorneys is to actually talk about the current rights that workers have under state and federal employment laws.  For example, illegal unpaid internships are a major problem for some young workers—but many have no idea that their job is illegal, or that they could be entitled to back wages and liquidated damages plus attorney fees.

This means that one of the best things you can do is talk at community centers, colleges, and so forth about the current state of employment law in the United States and in your specific area.  Helping people to understand minimum wage laws, laws surrounding overtime, employment classification, and prohibited discrimination can be incredibly useful—you'll be doing your community a service while you're building business for yourself.  These informational sessions can sometimes net you several clients all at once.

#2: Specializations—Consider Unique Issues

One of the ways that attorneys in employment and labor law can differentiate themselves from the competition is by starting to specialize in particular types of cases.  While if you're a brand new attorney, you'll probably need to take most cases that come through your door, consider specifically seeking out the type of work that you think you can do the best job at.  If discrimination cases are the types of cases you enjoy most and are most talented with, focus on those.  If enforcing wage and hours disputes is more your style, orient your marketing materials toward that focus.

#3: Connect Offline and Online Marketing

One of the things many attorneys today forget to do when making marketing plans is to ensure that their online and offline marketing are well connected.  Ideally, your online and offline marketing should be in a symbiotic relationship, each one working to help the other.  Too often, attorneys pursue drastically different marketing strategies on and offline, or only carry over their offline advertising through some quick taglines on their websites.

Keep in mind that much of your offline marketing can involve more than straight up advertising.  In many cases, you'll do better with more subtle types of marketing, like community involvement and sponsoring teams.

#4: Create Infographics To Make Information Understandable

One of the fastest ways to make content spread on the web is to put information into a handy, easy to read infographic.  Because labor laws in the United States are so misunderstood by so many people, it's easy to make an infographic that can start to tear down some of the more pervasive myths surrounding what workers' rights are and aren't.

Infographics will usually require a real graphic designer—you can hire a web design firm to create them for your firm if you don't have a designer on staff.  Trying to create an amateur infographic will usually result in substandard work, which is unlikely to actually take hold online.

#5: Use Social Media To Spread Information Virally

Once you've got some kind of content to spread—an infographic, an informational brochure about workers' rights, or even a really great blog entry that explains a complicated legal topic in simple language for lay people—it's time to make it spread out.  Try posting to social media channels for the best boost to your virality.  Huge numbers of people use social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and if your content is really interesting, it can often spread basically on its own after you give it the initial push to your friends and fans.

It's important to make sure, if you're using social networking to spread viral information, that you're using the network for more than just spreading out your content.  People who only spread their content online are often regarded as spammers, rather than as real participants in the social media environment.  It's much better to interact with your friends and fans in a genuine way, trading content and providing interesting information, than it is to use Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks as purely a conduit for free advertising.

#6: Get Into the Local Search Game

One of the most important factors in your online marketing, no matter where you are in the country, is Google local search.  Google is used by a majority of web searchers, and today, four out of every five people who look for an attorney check online for reviews or other information about their lawyer before making a final decision about who to call.

Local searches are important to most people who do Google searches.  The vast majority of attorneys get their clients from their local area, and one of the best things about Google local is that it actually allows your links from local websites, like Chamber of Commerce sites, to count for more when keywords for your firm are searched for from locations near you.

#7: Remember the Basics: Customer Service

Customer service is absolutely critical for labor and employment attorneys.  Many of your clients may not really understand their rights, and are depending on you to be able to explain it in terms that they can understand.  By focusing on customer service and making yourself available to clients, you show yourself to be the kind of attorney who actually cares about client concerns.

Law firm marketing is never easy in these times, but with the oldest Baby Boomers approaching 70 years old, it's important for legal practitioners to understand how succession can impact their marketing.  If you're trading on the names and business of your senior partners, you'll want to have a succession plan in place to make sure that your firm lives on beyond any one person's contribution.  Keep reading to understand what you can do to make sure your marketing doesn't take a hit even when a partner dies or retires from practice.

Step 1: Start Marketing Younger Attorneys Sooner

Many firms make the mistake of making their marketing materials mostly about senior partners.  While it's important to market using the people in your firm with name recognition, it's also critical to ensure that your younger attorneys are being put forward in your materials.

For example, if you're going to draft press releases about cases, make sure that you're fully acknowledging the contributions of junior attorneys.  You may also want to include profiles of up and coming lawyers in your firm that have real prominence in your firm's external communications.  This kind of recognition can also be good for employee morale among younger attorneys.

Step 2: Encourage Attorneys To Engage in Marketing

In addition to including younger attorneys in your marketing materials, you should also help them understand how to incorporate marketing into their own days.  For example, attorneys should be made aware of the ways in which their activities for charities and the community can be used for firm marketing, and should be trained in how to market themselves and your firm in their daily lives.  Personal connections and referrals still account for a great deal of legal business, so it isn't enough to hope that online marketing alone can keep your firm afloat through a transition or succession.

Step 3: Train Younger Attorneys

Young attorneys shouldn't just learn about their potential role in marketing your firm.  It's also critical that your firm is working to train and educate young attorneys about current developments in law.  By keeping your attorneys trained and ensuring that they are doing meaningful continuing education, you'll keep them winning cases and gaining referrals.

Skimping on training expenses due to current cash shortfalls is like selling your paddle when you're already up a creek.  Make sure that you're always budgeting for sufficient training, or your succession is likely to turn into a disaster.

Step 4: Evaluate and Mentor Potential Leadership

When you've got a large number of attorneys working for your firm, not all of them will have the same potential to become a leader.  Don't assume that easy metrics, like number of hours billed per week or year, necessarily indicate leadership potential.  Just because an attorney knows how to bill hours doesn't necessarily mean they'll have the project management skills or interpersonal abilities to lead a group of people effectively.

When you find people who are interested in leadership and seem like they could become effective leaders, have a mentoring program in place to help these attorneys.  Make sure that there are open lines of communication with senior partners at the firm—it's better to cultivate talent that has “grown up” in your law firm's unique climate than to have to hire new talent at the time of a succession transition.  Attorneys who have existing loyalty to your firm and an understanding of your brand are worth even more at succession time, if your firm in 20 years is to have any resemblance to how it is today.

Step 5: Always Have a Succession Plan

The biggest marketing mistake that you can make during a time of transition is to lack a comprehensive succession plan that covers the death or incapacity of a partner.  While some firms don't want to think about these potential issues, the unexpected can happen at any time.  It is far better to develop a plan that will never see the light of day than to have to manage succession at an incredibly stressful time with no plan and several factions jockeying for their favored succession ideas.

Step 6: Maintain a Consistent Brand Image

Your marketing doesn't need to change significantly just because there's a transition occurring at your firm.  Keeping your brand image consistent will help your clients understand that your firm will maintain its high quality and client service standards.

Don't just have a brand image—make sure that all attorneys at your firm, from the most senior to the most junior, have a comprehensive understanding of the image you are trying to project.  Without it, you may find that your lawyers start talking at cross purposes with your marketing department, diluting your brand image overall.

Step 7: Have Young Attorneys Do More Online

One of the places where young attorneys can really step up to the plate in your marketing efforts is by creating a social media presence for your firm, or by creating blogs.  Often, these technological tasks are perceived as being a waste of time by senior partners, and older attorneys are less likely to have an in-depth understanding of online marketing technologies or the norms of internet communities and social networks.

This means that your young talent is in a perfect position to start transitioning your firm's marketing materials to the online world.  When your younger attorneys develop a social media presence, they make succession proceed more smoothly for business development.

Step 8: Know When To Seek Outside Talent

It's important to realize when you have a bench that isn't deep enough to continue effective marketing after your Baby Boomer partners retire.  When this happens, it's important to start making some lateral hires now.  There's no shame in seeking outside talent, but make sure that you have some plan for the continuation of your law firm's business at all times that doesn't rely on overuse of attorneys with insufficient experience or skill levels.