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[00:00:24] Speaker B: Welcome to we the People. I'm your host, Alina Gonzalez Dacre. And today we're exploring the digital side side of justice, how law firms can stand out in a crowded online world. And this is a topic I am very excited to dive into.
And joining me today is Marilyn Jenkins, a digital growth strategist and founder of Law Marketing Zone. She's been helping law firms scale their businesses since the early 90s using data driven marketing strategies that have helped some clients reach seven figure revenues and more than 14 times reported return on their original investment.
Marilyn, thank you for joining me and welcome to the show.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I'm excited for the conversation.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: I am definitely interested in this topic. I, for one, I have to say that I, I get intimidated when it comes to the, the, you know, marketing myself in my law firm and especially with all the different modalities we have available to us.
So, and I think that's something I share with many law firms feeling overshadowed by big competitors with the big budgets, flash, your websites or even ads. And the challenge lies in crafting that visibility rooted in trust, credibility and strategy.
So why do you think so many law firms struggle to break through the digital noise even when they're delivering the real results for their clients?
[00:01:58] Speaker A: I think it's, I think it comes down to your training and your messaging.
So as attorneys, you, it's, your credentials, it's, you know, where you, the award you've won, where you went to school, it's all of that information and that doesn't convey to potential new clients in the way that we're, we're accepting advertising now, who you are and how you can help me.
So in a lot of people's eyes, attorneys are unapproachable. You're smarter, you, you know, you're stronger. You've gone to all these schools and so you've just got so much more knowledge. It's a bit intimidating. So what we want to do is soften the messaging. And yes, you're still, you know, all of those things, but this is who I am, this is who I help and it's how I work. You know, I just, just break it down and talk to an individual instead of the market as a whole.
Does that make sense?
[00:02:56] Speaker B: So, yeah, absolutely. And I agree with that because I think that one of the pitfalls that we Lawyers have do or the pitfalls that we fall into is that we tend to go into the legalese. We use the big words.
I have a friend that I literally feel like I need a dictionary at thesaurus rather than just speaking like you know, the everyday person.
But so what are the first steps to building a visible, credible online presence that reflects who the lawyer really is?
[00:03:32] Speaker A: I think a very important thing to do and I'm glad you asked that question because I don't see a lot of attorneys doing this. It's getting better.
Is an intro video on your homepage.
So traditionally you'd have your picture on your home page, right? Instead of stock imagery. We want to see the attorney or the group if there's multiple ones. But an intro video and it doesn't have to be above the fold, which means the first screen people see, but at some someplace on your homepage should be a welcome video.
Less than a minute, 30 seconds, whatever. It doesn't have to be long. It's just an introduction to make you sound like a human. And it starts that know like and trust factor. That's a really good place to start. And you can take that video and put it on your Google business profile to help people and know you whenever they're in a search before they even get to your website.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: See, and I love that I don't even. I wouldn't have thought of that. And amazingly I'm a host of a show but yet I'm like okay. And I have to tell you, I am kind of writing off notes here. So if I seem a little lost. So like oh my God, that's so important.
So how do you tailor the marketing so your clients so that the clients find you rather than you chasing them? If that makes sense.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: And I think it comes down to it's messaging. So if you're. One of the best things that works really well is doing.
So we all have FAQs, right? Frequently Asked questions. So think about your best clients, the best type of cases that you want. What are the 510 questions everybody asks? Right. So each one of those questions and answers is easily a 30 second video, right? And you do it in the TikTok style as far as up and down, right. Instead of landscape, so you do a portrait and that way you can put those on your website. It also feeds into the AI AEO engine. So if you put do the video then have the question underneath and then a summary of your answer so that can be read by the search engines and the AI engines. But it also gives all that information to people when they come to your website or you share that on your social media or even better use that as in your ads. That's your ad creating.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: See, and so that's brilliant because I know having worked with and having friends in advertising or branding, as they always say, that that is so important is to get those that same messaging, but in a way that defines a problem that a potential client has and then what is the solution or the result that you could provide them by working with them. So I, and like I said, I'm writing down notes diligently here.
So what mistakes do lawyers typically make in digital marketing that actually hurt more than they help?
[00:06:28] Speaker A: I think not going for the right market or not being on the right platform.
So you can be on Google ppc, but if you're not, if you don't have the right research to see what your competition is spending, you may be throwing money into Google's profit and not getting any leads out of it. So that's big. If you're on local service ads or any kind of ad platform and you're not speed delete, you're not. As soon as a lead comes in, if you're after hours, there need to be an automated response or you need to have somebody answering that phone or if it's just a Thornfield, you need to reply to that lead as soon as possible. Because if someone is looking for you, they have. When people look for an attorney, they're having one of the lowest days of their life. Most, unless it's a business attorney, right? They have a need or they are in pain.
That means they're looking for someone to help them. So if they've reached out to you, it's your duty. Someone has raised their hand and said, I need what you have to offer. You need to call them back. So what I find is the, you know, when you ask somebody, how quickly can you get to a lead? And I get an answer of 4 to 24 hours, you'll never get that case.
That case is going somewhere else. They've already, four hours has gone by, they've already talked to two or three other attorneys. So you're hurting yourself. And even the Better business bureau says 67% of phone calls that come to small businesses are not answered by simply answering your phone. Because when people call out, your phone number is going to be in every ad, right? And it's on your website, it's everywhere someone calls answer your phone.
So those are the big things. Feed, delete and answer your phone.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: And which are Very simple strategies and, or I guess simpler said than done at times.
I am also at fault because as an attorney we try to man the phones or if we have paralegals that are manning the phone, sometimes they get overwhelmed.
So that is very important. And I have to say, like there are so many, especially on the social media, there's so many platforms out there such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, just. And I know there's more.
So how can policy or platform changes such as the algorithms or data privacy laws affect how visible lawyers can be?
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Well, I think, I think you just basically first find the platform that works best for you. Understand what words you can and cannot say. So if you're a personal injury attorney, you wouldn't want to have, you know, or even on Facebook or Instagram, you wouldn't want to have the wrong types of images in your ads. They won't let those go through. Keep in mind, platforms don't want an image or something like that. That's going to make people feel a bad emotion.
But that is, that is blatantly on Meta's advertising policies. Right. So that was important. Also the amount of text on the images, those types of things are very important.
So as far as algorithm changes, those are really going to happen when it comes to something like a tick tock or the feed, but the feed on, on Meta and Instagram. But if you're targeting to your local area and possibly broad targeting or you know, you choose something in interest, maybe the language. So be somewhat as broad as you can and you should be very safe.
You want to get, if you go too targeted, then your audience is too small. You'll end up spending a lot of money and not getting a lot of leads.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: And I could, I can appreciate that because I mean I even recall like Facebook or Meta as it's going by now, they even changed that to the point that if you were paying for advertisement or for a promotion emotion of your posts and such, they keep changing the rules on us. Yeah, so that was, that was actually frustrating to the point that it was like, okay, I give up.
And so how if you talking to say a small law firm and saying okay, it's not, it's not about giving up, it's about coming to a professional such as yourself to do the tweaks that are necessary.
I mean, I think that would be the best advice, wouldn't you agree?
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Exactly. I mean the big thing that that Meta is pushing right now, they spent $61 million on an AI engine and they're trying to do AI graphics, AI targeting, AI audience. And that is a AI way of spending a lot more money than you need to.
If you can afford to spend three or four times your budget to test and see what's working, go for it. But if you go with an advertising agency, we are members of masterminds that have hundreds of other agencies we're gathering data from at the same time. We're gathering data on different areas and the different individual things they're rolling out instead of just accepting all the recommendations.
So as simple as you're running Google PPC ads, I had a person call me, a law firm call me that they were doing super well and all of a sudden nothing happened for two weeks. The phones stopped ringing. So I'm digging in, asking what happened. And they're not an ads person. A member of their team logged into their ad account and Google had recommended all of these updates to their ad. So they accepted all of those by accepting all of the recommendations without looking at them individually, they blew their campaign.
They were still spending money but not getting leads.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Wow. And that's another.
I've known that. I noticed that on my Google Ads when they do those.
We'll be right back. Coming up next, Marilyn shares how to turn online visitors into paying clients and build real conversions, not just clicks. Tune right back in.
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Welcome back. I'm here with Marilyn Jenkins and in this segment we're going with going from visibility to conversion. Once clients find you online, how do you turn clicks into calls? That's where digital strategy meets psychology.
So, Marilyn, having traffic isn't enough. True digital strategy guides prospects through trust based messaging, clear design and simple conversion pathways.
So tell us and the viewers, what's the difference between someone visiting your site and someone becoming a paying client?
[00:13:32] Speaker A: I think it is the structure of your information.
So great question because you can see websites in all different designs, but there's a few elements that are super, super important and that is in the top right your phone number and have it tap to call because most traffic these days are coming from phones.
So whether they Find you on Google Meta or they literally just typed in your website address. Tap to call is the fastest way to do it, I think instead of having a big flashy graphic banner across the top of your website that has no bearing on what's going on, just static or stock images. They should be a picture of your team or like we talked about earlier, that video, welcome video. And then there should be a form that they can fill out right there. What you want to do is people have taken the time to come to your website, tell them who you are, tell them how you help them and ask them to book a consultation.
And then below that, let's talk a bit more about what you do, the different types of service and, and have an individual page for each practice area you have.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Because, you know, in the States we think about. Sorry, in, in the States we think about.
When you talk about family law, you need to qualify that. There's in certain areas of the United States that family law doesn't equate to divorce or child support or child custody or alimony. But in Most of the U.S. if you type in divorce, you expect all of that.
So it's a little bit of a regional colloquialism. So they think about that and make sure you have a page, you know, a practice area and a drop down and a page for each individual service. Because if I'm looking for, say a prenup, I don't care about all the others, I want that page and that's what's going to convert me to book of time.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Okay, so then, and I've heard of this from, you know, just watching videos or in looking at books, which I know you're an author of three books as well about funnels and how to design a website or even the social media advertisements creating that proper funnel that actually guides the people toward a call with that particular attorney or law firm. And I love the idea of the click to call on the website. But how do we structure those funnels? Because I think that's still the mystery. Because when someone says funnel, they're like, what? You know, I know many people who we all talk about. We're like, well, we're not sure our funnel's correct.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think this comes from. And you're right, I mean, funnel is a relatively new word for the last five years. And everybody's like, well, wait a minute, I needed a website, now I need a funnel. A funnel is, if you think about it, it's just a structure in the sales pyramid. We've Always had that big funnel where people come in the top and they just cut down to the bottom until the sale comes out the bottom. Right. So what we want to do is, is the way you want to look at your homepage is make that the funnel the top. Okay. Contact me at the top. Okay. Then tap the call and then everything goes from the, the top. Right. The top of your. Start with what you do, how you do that. As they read down, that's where you give them more information.
So your homepage can be its funnel of its own and then you've got your menu, they can go to more information but you want to give them enough information on the homepage that they will book a consultation.
So that would be a funnel in the homepage. Start with everybody and then run them down the funnel to what they're looking for.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: And then. Okay, so that's, I mean and it makes complete sense and I love how you visual like visually I can see it now like especially with, I mean and I know it sounds maybe to you it seems like it's such a simple fix, but to me this is like, oh my God, I'm having aha. Moments on now of how to change my own website. So thank you for that.
But so going beyond the funnel, going beyond like even just making the, the home page, that first tier of fun, you know, the funnel, what message or offers, makes leads. Feel confident to take that next step.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: I think your reviews. So I think you should have customer reviews and testimonial videos. So now depending on the practice area, someone might not want to give you a video on, I don't know, criminal or something, whatever. But if you can have a customer saying how happy they were with your service, just a simple 30 second, 90 second video of how happy they were working with the team, how the process worked without giving up, obviously any confidential information. But reviews that are brought in from your Google business profile, testimonial videos of people who've worked with you, those kinds of things instill confidence.
And again, the, the video of you, the information about what you do and a beginning of an FAQ on your homepage will give them with the top three questions that people ask.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: And okay, so I have to say one of the first top three questions, how much does it cost? How much do you charge?
So I think that that's always been the type of area most people don't. I know for myself it or other attorneys don't really like to jump right in, especially since it's of lot a a case by case basis if you're not like personal injury or such.
But knowing that most bar associations, state bar associations do have stringent rules on advertising on advertisements for attorneys. What are the legal or ethical boundaries that most lawyers have to keep in mind when marketing online?
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Well, most of the time it's not as complicated as they used to be or as they think about it, because even the bar associations have, have realized we've got a lot more opportunity for marketing here. But the biggest thing is you can't say something like, I'm the best divorce attorney in my city or I guarantee I'll win you. You know, so there's things that are clearly lies. So you, you can't say those types of things, but you can be very clear on what you do and the results that you've received.
Right. Those are not lies.
And we do, if there's any question, we go through the bar association's advertising section, read it and make sure everything we're doing falls within that. But the two things that we've come up against that we have never done, but those are specific, is calling yourself the best or the number one, there's no bar association unless you do that. And of course, guaranteeing results, you can never do that. So, you know, those are the things. If there's any of those states or commonwealths to do anything specific or different that you question, we will pull bar associations, associations and go over it together.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Okay, good to know. Well, one of the things that I've been noticing, even in the billboard ads, which of course we didn't even, that's another form of advertisement.
Now you see a lot of personal injury law firms putting like their what, what they, the awards they have won or settlements and such.
So, and I thought that was surprising because I remember at one point that wasn't permitted. So I guess that's a new evol that the bars, at least the Florida bar, is now allowing, I can say.
But how about the changes in privacy laws or ad policies? How does that disrupt converting those leads into paying clients?
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Well, when you, when you say about the settlement alerts, those kinds of things, there are some bar associations that are not allowing you to like combine a month.
So say you're, you had $2.2 million you got in August for, you know, settlements. You can't combine those and say that.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: So you still have to do individual cases.
As far as privacy laws, you have to appeal, do exactly like the platform. So I don't think there's something that you're going to break privacy laws. The Thing about, you know, it's going to be cookie policy. In a privacy policy you have to have terms and conditions and privacy on your website. And I'm super surprised when I go to an attorney website and they don't have a privacy policy that's, I mean you can get 1 in 5 minutes pre written and then stick it on your website. You can't run ads on Google or Meta without having a privacy policy on your website.
So you know, you just have to have that.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Okay.
And so like making a list of things I'm gonna have to do now after this conversation, I mean this is how valuable. And I'm so thrilled that you are a guest because I'm literally like, oh, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. And I can't wait for the to watch this again because I'm going to be sending it to my web designer and branding people.
Marilyn, what are one of the things that let's say, okay, we have young attorneys. It's kind of like when I went out of law school we had more law students than there were attorneys or jobs available. And many young attorneys are finding that today again where they're going out and opening up their own practice. And I feel like they have a little bit more of an advantage like say you even for me because they're accustomed to the social media and the digital age. What advice would you have for that new business owner, that new law firm owner that's breaking out maybe doesn't have a big budget for advertising?
[00:23:11] Speaker A: I would say start with social media, start with LinkedIn, start putting your name out there of what you're doing, who you're helping build again those FAQ videos, any of those types of videos, get that kind of thing out there and it builds your know, like and trust factor. So that would be the one thing I do. If you don't have a budget, social media is free.
Just keep it within the rails and get people to know who you are. Join local Facebook groups, be a lurker and just answer questions. That's a big thing. If there's a LinkedIn group of attorneys that's in your practice area or your geographical area, join that and make LinkedIn being your network so you can build a network for referrals and build, build a reputation for yourself as being the one who brings value, that's involved in your community and in your, in, in the attorney groups, your chamber of commerce, those things.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Marilyn, you've shared such valuable strategies for law firms that want to learn more about your work or to get Help improving their client funnels. Where can they reach you?
[00:24:17] Speaker A: They can reach
[email protected] that's my website, and they can book a call with me there.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Up next, when marketing becomes a money pit, Marilyn explains how to stop wasting money and start seeing real returns. Tune right back in after this.
Welcome back to the to we the People. I'm joined again by Marilyn Jenkins. And now we're tackling something every business owner fears. Pouring money into marketing and seeing no return.
I know. I have had this experience for law firms. This can be especially frustrating when every dollar counts. So how do you know if your marketing is working or just draining your resources?
So, Marilyn, how do you advise a law firm when you're. When they look at you and they bring their data and say, this is how much money I spent, and there's basically a negative roi, let's say.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: Good question. I get that a lot. I've been burned. I don't want to do it again.
How are you different?
And we have to look at the data.
Did you bid on the right keywords?
Were you in the right audience?
One client came to me and said, I don't know that I want to do this again. I've been burned, and I spent all this money. So I dug into their ad account.
All they wanted were Spanish clients.
Their entire ad campaign was in English and focused on English.
They specialize in Spanish.
So her complaint was, we haven't got one Latino client.
You won't. Those ads will never be shown to a Latino or that unless they have their browser set for English. So there's some of those little things. And then, of course, speed to lead. We talked about that. Did you, Janet, when the leads came in, did you get on them very quickly, or did you wait 4 hours or 24 hours? How fast are you responding to the leads? Because you can have the best marketing agency in the world, but if you're not getting on those leads, you need a call center. You need someone that has a 247 bilingual intake service like I do that gets on the leads within 30 seconds to three minutes.
We get on the lead before they have time to call somebody else. So there's things, not just marketing. So it could be that your targeting is wrong.
If you're doing Google Ads, are you also doing negative keywords in addition to the actual keywords you want?
And do you have the keywords that you think they're searching, or do you have the keywords they're actually searching for?
Those are two different, very different questions.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Okay. Explain what a negative keyword is.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: I think so when you're, when you're in your Google Ad account. So you're, you're bidding on ads on keywords, right. So you can, there's a report that shows the keywords, words of the searches that you've been shown for. Well, you should look at that. And how many of those are irrelevant to you.
So now you want to tell Google Negative, you know, like if you are not a, a pro bono attorney, you never want to have gratis, you never want to have anything that says free legal advice or anything that says free, whatever language you're running it in. So those are the things you want to always say. I never want to show up for those. Because if you don't say no, you will.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Okay.
And these are all great points and it's, and I, and I love to learn the terminology because it does help so much because I know for myself, like be though I'm in southwest Florida, there is a small number of bilingual Spanish speaking attorneys that serve a population that is increasing in southwest Florida.
And so one of the things is for me is I want to target Spanish speaking clients because I had that niche. I'm also, I know that I am the only attorney in this area that deals with guardianships. Okay. And that's bilingual. That's a huge, you know, niche right there potentially. So it is important. So that's interesting because I know that when I did run Spanish Google Ads it wasn't landing as well. So now I'm going to have to look into that.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: And when you, when you do look into that. Sorry to interrupt. Just to bring it back to like a colloquialism. Earlier you said guardianship. So what is that word in Spanish.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: And is that the left, Is that.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Is that the word they actually use or do they have a slang term that they use for that?
[00:28:50] Speaker B: Well, and I have to look into that because that's something my paralegal can help me with. Because it's true. Because it's. Every dialect has its own slang.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: So that's important. And that's it. Well, even within English, I mean, we have different slang. Whether you're talking to a Southerner, you live in Texas, you may understand this. You know, we have little colloquialism. I live in Florida, but I have, you know, some southern bases and versus somebody from Boston or New York. So I guess it's really important to actually hit upon how your clients or your, you know, your focus group that you want to hit. How do they speak and how do they reflect on things? So it goes directly to them.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Exactly. In, in North Carolina, we wouldn't normally. I grew up in North Carolina. We wouldn't normally say, I was in an auto accident. No, I was in a car wreck.
So. See what I mean? What keywords you are bidding on that you want people to search, or what are they actually searching? So think about your ideal client that you want. What language are they using? And I don't mean English, Spanish, what words are they using whenever they're having a problem that you can solve? Those are keywords you want to search for and they may be cheaper keywords as well.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's actually, that's fascinating because it's true. Like in an area like where we are, we have a lot of snowbirds.
And I can tell you, I can almost do a perfect Bostonian accent thanks to people, but they don't. The. The words that they use to describe certain acts or actions are different from somebody from like my hometown in Lakeland, Polk county, you know, so that is a great thing to now start thinking of. I'm loving this. You're really sparking my imagination as well.
When you're looking at budgeting, what budgeting rules would you suggest a law firm keep to for marketing, but also to. To ensure that there is a control factor and they're just not all set in opening the floodgates.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: If you're on Meta, I would say don't start with less than $50 a day and don't touch it for like three weeks.
So every ad, whether you're on Google, PPC or Meta, Meta will typically respond faster.
And they're using their AI to help the audience or to help target. But when you commit to a budget, leave it alone. The problem is, is what we do as people, we go, oh, it's been two days and I haven't got a leave. Maybe I should turn this off. Or, you know, the opposite end of the pendulum. Maybe $50 is enough. I need to go to a hundred. Now you've doubled your budget. Now you've restarted learning in the campaign. You don't want to do that. You want to be. Set it and leave it alone. Don't mess with it. What we do is when we're monitoring ads, whether it's Google, Meta, streaming tv, any of that, we are monitoring the numbers, not the number of leads coming through. In the beginning of a campaign, you're going to be looking at impressions, at clicks, traffic. There's so much that you're looking at. So Just because we set a campaign and we didn't get a lead in two days doesn't mean we're not paying attention. We have to have a good 7 to 14 days of run. And we're watching that data, we're comparing data from the first seven days, the next seven days, those types of things, you should see a ramp up. But if you've got an ad marketing company that says, well, it's been two weeks, we need to add that, you know, more ad spend.
No.
And Google takes even longer. Google is a beast. There's a lot of moving parts in there and it could take two months before you get a consistent, steady flow of leads. So you need to have patience, pick a budget, stick with it and just have patience.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: I love you. Have patience. Something that does run short, often with attorneys based on experience.
I mean, we like immediate results. We want to tackle something, or at least that's the tendency of myself and very a lot of my friends that are attorneys. So which marketing tactics deliver the best returns in legal services today? Especially with all the options that are out there.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: The que then the question to answer that with would be Are you B2C or B2B? Okay, that's going to set the stage. So B2B, you want to be taken on LinkedIn, working that manually, as well as ads if you can.
B2C, that's going to be business to consumer. So anything that they, that a person off the street can use your service.
Facebook is a really good platform.
Instagram. With Facebook and Instagram together, which is called Meta, you're getting the sandwich generation. Are you interested in estate planning? You've got people who need an estate plan. You've got the sandwich generation that has taken care of their parents and they're now grandparents.
So that's where they are. And you can get leads and traction on Facebook or Meta. And Meta has just recently added SMS consent to the lead form. So instead of getting hooked into a bot farm, which means fake leads coming through and doing your ad spend, if a lead comes through, they have to receive a code on their phone in order to submit that lead. So when we've seen that come through and be added to our ad accounts, we've improved the quality of leads substantially for our clients. And so that would be good and the same on, on Google, send them to a good landing page. But you know, that's if you want to hit everybody in your business, a consumer, you know, people who are having family problems to divorce or any of that kind of stuff. Child support, Alimony they're on there talking to their girlfriends. They're not just looking at cat videos, you know. So think about who your ideal client is and then do a little bit of research. What platform are they on and what platform do you think they would respond on? So people used to say Facebook is only for the social media people, just cat videos. No, it's a lot about community.
So people are discussing their issues, they are getting involved in, in groups and you can get in front of people that have recently joined a, you know, a research divorce or something like that, or maybe there's a single moms group and they happen to go in that group. You can get your ad in front of them.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Well, and it's very interesting that you mentioned. So like I've always, like I've been hearing, I should say recently, like Facebook is like where the boomers and the Gen Xers are and Instagram is millennials or Gen Z, which I guess, you know, I could see it because like, for me, Facebook, I get to catch up with what my friends are doing, where they're traveling. Oftentimes when I hear about, you know, not so great news of someone's passing. But is that, I mean, is that just some type of, you know, wise tale or is the demographic really that definable between Facebook and Instagram?
[00:35:54] Speaker A: I think it was moving in that direction at one point. And yeah, you're going to get the more tech savvy, you know, wanting those video shorts, you know, the reels kind of, the stories kind of thing on Instagram more. But now that there's reels on Facebook, there's lots of ages of people on Facebook. I mean, it's not, it's not separated. That's the old folks social media anymore. So I mean, I think it might have been trending that way a few years ago, but with the new advanced images and videos and stuff that they're, they're really promoting, it's coming back. It's everything.
And you can do, you can find the statistics on the, the age range of who's on Facebook, who's on Instagram. I do think Instagram is probably younger, but more video centric.
But that doesn't mean, you know, it doesn't mean it's not a good platform to do for retargeting. If not that, if not just ads.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: Directly, which is good, then now I can tell my nieces it's not just for old folks, you know, because they like to tease me at.
So coming up next, we're going to wrap up how Law firms can create contact that truly connects, not just adds to the noise.
So tune right back in for more with Marilyn.
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As we wrap up today's episode, we're talking about content that matters. In a world full of noise, how can law firms create content that informs, inspires, and actually builds trust? Marilyn Jenkins has been helping law firms find their voice for decades, and her insights can change how you communicate starting today.
So the key to strong digital presence isn't quantity, it's meaning. Effective content should educate, empathize, and engage your ideal client while adapting to shifting algorithms and evolving online behaviors.
So, Marilyn, why do many lawyers write blogs or social posts but they just don't hit the mark? They're not resonating to their ideal client?
[00:38:37] Speaker A: I think a lot of it has to do with, again, back to your education, right?
You guys are wordy, you're legalese, and that doesn't hit articles that you do, like blog articles and the posts that go on your Google business profile. Any of those need to be like you're talking to a person, not you're giving an opinion. And, and that's the one, the one thing to get, you know, it's been difficult to get clients over. It's like we're writing simple, explanatory SEO articles, articles that are designed to be picked up by the search engines that have links using your keywords. So, and we do two articles a week for each of our clients, and that's where we come up with content and we come up with the top 50 keywords, and we structure our articles around that. They are simple, educational. Sometimes it's what to do in case and what to do in case of a auto accident in Dallas, Texas.
See all those keywords in that? And we just explained literally the 10 steps of, you know, keep your mouth shut, make a phone call, and, you know, those kinds of things. But it's simple. And yeah, they're, they're very simple. But I think the problem that attorneys do when they write their own, I had a client, she said she Spent two months writing an article.
Okay, why did you do that? I mean we can. And, and it's, you know, it's like 3,000 word article. Okay.
I wouldn't have wasted my time on that. But if that made you feel good. But you don't need to do that to get traction and to get clients because clients are going to, aren't going to read 3,000 words.
[00:40:08] Speaker B: Well, okay, I'm laughing because I can totally see that because I've been tasked with writing article. And then he, it's like I start overthinking. I'm like, well, wait a minute, I got to make sure that I look, research the law to ensure that I have it correct. And then I'm going to go into. And it's like a rabbit hole. Oh, there's case law. Well, what's this saying? And I can see that it would take a while for that article because we do, we tend to, we start going down these rabbit holes and part of it is also interest, but. And then we get lost in the weeds.
So I love the fact that you have a service that writes articles because.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: They'Re not opinion pieces. That's the thing. You have to realize these social media articles or SEO articles, blog articles are not opinion pieces. They're informative.
It's teaching well.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: And I think that's like, you just have to get the.
For lawyers, they'll laugh. We're not trying to get into a law review. We're trying to.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: Impart some knowledge that may be helpful to, to an audience that's clicking onto our site or our social media, which is very important to remember. I'm cracking up. I'm sorry because I know I've been guilty of it.
So how would you suggest picking a topic that truly matters or that may identify real problem for one of your clients audiences?
[00:41:35] Speaker A: Well, I think with, with divorce and family law, which is a lot of our clients is they focus on the children and that, you know, that's huge. So pick something that you feel again, look back at your best clients that you really enjoyed working with. What was the one thing that mattered to them most.
Now let's make an article about that.
So I mean, and you know, we can set a schedule, you can set a schedule and do that. But if you're, if you're picking topics, it's what has resonated with past clients that you enjoyed working with. What problem did you solve? You guys solve problems every day. What problem did you solve? And can you talk about that?
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Okay. And that's that's good because it's interesting because, like, so where I'm at, we have definitely more of a retiree community.
And so, and it's interesting because I've been here now 11 years and we're my. When I was in central Florida, my practice was more child issue focused. Let's put that way, my family law aspect now it's more of the golden years. Like, you know, I have to tell you, it's adorable the, the second marriages that are in the golden age, you know, the retirees. So it is interesting because now I have to think that. But when I'm thinking about, okay, one of my most enjoyable, you know, clients and how I was able to resolve an issue for them, then it's okay, we got that. We have a message and we know we're not writing for the law review or for a bar magazine.
So what content formats fits best? Is it video? Is an article as a webinar?
I mean, how do we figure out what would be best for our legal services?
[00:43:21] Speaker A: I think if you think about looking at AI in the SEO, right? And that's artificial intelligence in the search engine optimization of your website, I would say always video and text.
So when people talk to their, hey, Google Siri or any of that kind of stuff, they're asking a question in English or in Spanish, but it's a full human question.
So if you started your video or the. Even the article with that question and then you answer it. So if you do it as a video, you want to have the question in text below it, a summary of that video and then the answer, and then a full description of the answer, which that would be your blog article.
So that would be the perfect content to be able to have available to all the search engines, the AI engines, as. And it just would make really great content. So I would say those two pieces, if you're in a practice area that doing webinars is a great way, like estate planning used to always do webinars. And I remember I talked to a guy who used to do DVDs in the 80s.
You know, that is such a complicated topic. A webinar is a thing to do.
Would a short lunch and learn be something you could do at your local community center to teach people about this one particular thing that could be very helpful in getting clients?
[00:44:39] Speaker B: Okay, these are all great, fascinating points.
And I do love the fact that it's the video and then had the synopsis and stuff, which I do believe that you can eat like some of the apparatuses you can do for what? For recording a video will also provide a transcript. Because for me, I will say I prefer doing video than.
Right.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:05] Speaker B: Because I am one of those that then I start going down the rabbit hole.
I do. But. So one of the things I would, I would imagine that's also very important for firms is this, that their messaging or their content has to be consistent. But how do you prevent the burnout or the boredom when it's just that consistency seems to be monotonous and no.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: One wants the same thing on the calendar three days a week. Right. You don't want to tuna salad sandwich every day for lunch. No. What you need to do is, what makes it really simple is do a con, a batch content creation. So make a plan. Okay, I'm gonna do 10 FAQ videos this month. I'm gonna erase one every three days as my on my social media. So I'm gonna bring three shirts, maybe four or five shirts to the office. We're gonna film all 10 of them at one time, banging out in an hour. They're 30 second videos.
And if you say and or you stutter on a word, keep going.
Nobody wants completely inevitably polished because we're not completely in utterly polished. Right. So be human, but batch your content and the same thing. If you're writing articles, I would suggest choosing Claude, who writes very humanly the Claude AI app. Give it a prompt and ask it to give you the first draft of an article.
And you can actually be so detailed to say it has to fit within this law in this state.
So take that. You've saved all that time coming up with creative ideas.
Take that article now right from that.
So you've saved yourself hours and hours of time and you can come up with a very thorough and, and you know, detailed article that doesn't have to be more than 500 words saying, I love that.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: And you said that AI was Claude.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: Claude. I like Claude. When it comes to writing, we get a lot of our, our ideas, our topic ideas through our aac. My partners, all of my team uses AI in some way just to save time. And when you're looking at, okay, I need an article on guardianships in Naples, Florida. What can we do? What can we come up with? 500 words. There you have it. Now you've got a first draft. It takes about 30 seconds. You know, you can change your prompt, make it complicated. I mean it doesn't, I just said it really simply. But yeah, get that first draft now finish that in the next hour. You're done batching your content using using the things that using the tools to help you do faster.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: Okay, this is wonderful, Marilyn. Your advice today has been so practical and eye opening. I mean my brain is going on where to go check now and write notes. Where can viewers go to learn more about Law Marketing Zone and connect with you directly or with your team?
[00:47:59] Speaker A: Team the best place to reach me and my team is lawmarketingzone.com and on there you can book a call with me, a 15 minute call. We just chat about what your needs, what your goals are and see how we can help you reach them.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: Marilyn, thank you for joining me and for sharing such valuable wisdom on modern legal marketing. Your message reminds us that in this digital age, visibility isn't about volume, it's about value. And and to our viewers, remember this authenticity builds authority. Whether you're a law firm or a small business, what truly connects is the heart behind the brand. I am Alina Gonzalez Dockery. Thank you so much for coming and joining me on another episode of we the People, where we explore real conversations that drive change, growth and understanding. We'll see you next time on Media Now Media tv. It.
