Barbara Walters Price

Posts Not To Be Missed

• FAQ Pages for Accountants or Lawyers? (Golden Practices - Michelle Golden)
• The Power of Space (or, Time to Stop Playing Whac-a-Mole) (Service Minded - Debra Helwig)
• The Social Net is Just Working a Bigger Room (Marketing Catalyst - Bruce Allen)
• Keep Your Web Site Fresh (Legal Marketing Blog - Tom Kane)
• For small PSFs, teaming and joint venturing could help ride out a recession ( - Expertise MarketplaceSuzanne Lowe)
• 25 Very Smart Business Women to Follow on Twitter (MarCom Writer Blog - Dianna Huff)

Marketing Directors or Business Development Coaches or Both?

Larry Bodine had recent post entitled "Law Firms Spend Less on Branding, More on Business Development."  The post summarizes an article of the same name by branding expert Leigh George.

Spending more money on business development than traditional branding makes perfect sense.  Right now, the majority of our marketing and development dollars need to be spent to make the phone ring sooner rather than later, especially since sales cycles have lengthened.

An example in the post caught my eye:

Green & Seifter Attorneys, PLLC, a 30-lawyer firm in Syracuse, New York, has shifted dollars away from print advertising and reallocated those funds to a business development consultant who works with a handful of attorneys one-on-one and with another ten in monthly group meetings. Not only is the program a success, having already paid for itself in new business, but it’s paying dividends. Kathleen Ryan, director of marketing and public relations at the firm, has seen “an increase in confidence and in traditional business development techniques like articles, referral development, [and] speaking engagements.”  (emphasis mine)

I am happy that the attorneys at this law firm are finding this program a success.  However, I'm struck that it took a consultant to create confidence in "traditional business development techniques like articles, referral development [and] speaking engagements." 

Part of my job and the job of many CMOs is to work with our professionals to secure articles and speaking engagements and support other business development efforts.  I am not, however, a business development consultant.  I just wonder how many dollars could be saved on consultants if marketing directors with the right capabilities stepped up and were allowed and trusted to work with professionals one-on-one in such a manner. 

I mean no disrespect to Ms. Ryan because I feel certain that she does a great job.  Often, too much credence is given to the opinions of an outsider while the opinions and experience of those inside the firm are discounted.  I have experience being the one who has had her opinions discounted or dismissed in favor of "marketing professionals" so I know how that feels.

I also do not intend to demean the work of consultants.  Like many firms, we have worked with consultants who were exemplary and helped us a great deal. 

However, if there is sufficient trust in the capabilities of the insider and the right skill set, a consultant will not be needed.  I know this can work.  Our firm decided to develop a strategic plan without a consultant and we accomplished it.  It was successful because:

• the CEO and management of the firm were committed to it

• we knew it had to happen to aid our growth and deal with succession issues - so failure was not an option

It seems if there is that level of commitment and a marketing director or other professional with the right skill set and drive, an in-house effort could be successful.

Happy Monday!

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

If you haven't watched this video, stop right now and watch.

Two New Articles Added

Two articles have been added to the "Complimentary Articles" section of this blog.  The first was published in June of 2008 (yep, I'm behind) and it is entitled "How to Develop & Manage a Niche."  The second was published this month and is entitled "Social Media: What Is It & Should You Care?."

Both articles are addressed to business appraisers.  Other professional advisors to business can certainly benefit as well.

They were both published in CCH's Business Valuation Alert newsletter.  Hope you enjoy them.  You can find them in the "Complimentary Articles" section of this website.

Happy Monday

Should My Firm Tweet?

I have a problem with professional service firms tweeting versus the individuals in them tweeting - via Twitter, of course.  I follow a PR gal from a big PSF firm and she tweets for the firm, not for herself.  So, the tweets are mini press releases.

A young analyst talked to me about creating a "Mercer Capital page" and tweeting as a firm, rather than as a person.  How can the result for a PSF be anything but mostly boring mini press releases?  There are alternatives, I suppose.  "The firm," via you, could tweet about its inner workings - the personalities and politics that every firm deals with.  However, while a great many followers would be gained, that alternative will result in your unemployment and possibly legal troubles.  Bad idea. 

If we, as a firm, tweet, we'll do it strategically via one or two professionals who are passionate about what they do. There are really only 4 steps to get started: 1) get buy-in from firm management.  2) give the individuals guidelines.  This is vitally important.  3) help them find people to follow, and 4) then let them tweet as themselves, sharing information about their professional passions.  Of course, we will follow their tweets.

But we may not pursue that strategy at all.  There are opportunity costs to everything we do and tweeting done well takes time.  Not to mention the unsettled argument about whether it creates business opportunities or is just a fad.  I won't weigh in on that.  I also won't use Twitter for mini press releases.

Any decent PSF marketing director works to understand what their people are passionate about and calculates the opportunity costs of every marketing venture.  I do not believe our firm has lost anything by not tweeting.  I may be wrong but am comforted by knowing that we don't hang our hat on only one marketing tactic or channel.  Visit our website to learn more about all we do and get a flavor of our marketing philosophy.  If we begin to tweet, I will let you know.  And if you know of any PSFs that tweet and do it well, send me a note so I can follow them. 

Happy Monday

Source: passiveaggressivenotes.com

We Are Testing Website Pop-Ups

For professional services firms, content is an important marketing tool.  Articles, white papers, e-books, powerpoint decks, podcasts, etc. can convey expertise.  At Mercer Capital, my firm, we have four e-mail newsletters that contain very useful content for their target markets. They are free, or complimentary, as we say.  Two of those newsletters have fewer subscribers than we would like.  Add to that the marketing engine which is our website - one of the most visited, if not the most visited, sites in our profession.  The question was and is how to use our website to convert visitors into newsletter subscribers?   While we have "subscribe to our newsletters" on every page of the site, that isn't getting the job done. 

We are experimenting with a pop-up.  The pop-up asks the visiter if they have subscribed to our newsletters.  To keep the pop-up from being absolutely annoying, it does not pop on the home page (only on the interior pages) and only appears once as you navigate throughout the site.  While nirvana would be different pop-ups for different sections of the website (a BankWatch newsletter pop-up that appears when visiting our financial services valuation section, a Financial Reporting Valuation Flash newsletter pop-up when visiting our financial reporting valuation section, etc.), that isn't feasible for our site and our budget. Therefore, the pop-up is general in nature and takes the visitor to a landing page which lists all our newsletters.

We launched the pop-up three weeks ago.  So far, we're seeing an uptick in our newsletter subscriptions.  How much of an up-tick is yet to be determined.  I'll report back. 

If this works for us and if your site can support it, it might be something to consider.  It might also be a way to differentiate you from your competition.  As far as I can tell, we're the only firm in our profession with this type of functionality on our website.  Visit our site (www.mercercapital.com) and click to one of the interior pages and tell me what you think. 

Hyphens and Apostrophies Run Amok!

First there was the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.  Now there is Apostrophe Abuse.  Visit both for a laugh. 

From the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks

From Apostrophe Abuse