Small and mid-sized firms busy with online marketing upgrades

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If you haven’t given serious thought to upgrading your firm’s online marketing efforts recently, just know that your competitors are busy redesigning their websites to make them more user-friendly for prospective clients who increasingly grab their smart phones to search for the lawyers who ultimately will represent them.

Boston’s Murphy & King is one firm that believes it can claim, for now anyway, “mission accomplished.” Last month, the 23-attorney business litigation and bankruptcy firm launched a dramatically redesigned website as one element of its integrated digital marketing campaign.

“You really can’t have static home pages anymore,” says Robert J. Perry, Murphy & King’s executive director. “We found about a quarter of the visitors to our website are using mobile devices. In order to meet the needs of those people, your website has to look the way our website looks so you can get all the key information you need just by scrolling down.”

McIntyre Tate in Rhode Island beat Murphy & King by a month when it launched a newly designed, mobile-friendly website in August. Stephen M. Prignano, a tech-savvy partner at the Providence law firm, oversaw a vendor’s redesign of McIntyre Tate’s website.

“People are accessing information on the web through their mobile devices all the time, so it’s really important that the website accommodate the smaller screens and scales for different devices,” Prignano says.

Murphy & King’s new marketing campaign also features a series of professionally produced online videos aimed at helping their lawyers connect with potential clients.

“Videos can be very valuable in personalizing attorneys more than just a written bio,” says Boston’s Jeffrey N. Catalano, who engages in a wide range of online marketing as a medical-malpractice lawyer.

“The trend is toward a more simplified front page that gets you to the exact information you’re trying to get to.”

— Justin L. Kelsey, Skylark Law & Mediation

Mobile-friendly sites

While most firms large and small require the technical expertise of outside vendors when revamping their websites, that’s not the case with Skylark Law & Mediation, a four-attorney family law and mediation firm in Framingham.

Skylark Law’s founding partner, Justin L. Kelsey, is a self-described “technology geek.” With a background in engineering, Kelsey can be his firm’s website designer. He provides a unique perspective on the challenges of digital marketing for small-firm attorneys.

Though Kelsey redesigned Skylark’s website just four years ago, he is in the midst of another redesign effort spurred by the knowledge that more than 50 percent of his firm’s current website traffic comes from mobile devices.

According to Kelsey, there’s a tidal shift away from the usage of desktop computers to smartphones and tablets. He projects that eventually 95 percent of all website traffic will be attributable to mobile devices, and, therefore, law firms need to ensure that their sites are designed with those devices in mind.

“You really can’t have static home pages anymore.”

— Robert J. Perry, Murphy & King

“The trend is toward a more simplified front page that gets you to the exact information you’re trying to get to,” Kelsey says.

One problem, he notes, is how data is downloaded to a mobile device that may have a slower connection than a desktop.

“You want to be directing people around a page as much as possible rather than directing them to a new page,” he says.

According to Kelsey, a mobile-first website design presents information about the firm’s lawyers, their contact information and basic information about what the firm does on the first page that is loaded.

A mobile-friendly website also needs to account for the fundamental problem posed by the varying screen sizes of the different devices used by visitors to one’s site, says Prignano, whose firm’s new website automatically reformats itself based on the device being used.

“It basically doesn’t matter what device you’re using; you’re still able to see all the relevant information on our site,” Prignano says. “That’s critically important.”

One of Kelsey’s pet peeves is the website that doesn’t allow a mobile user to contact a law firm with a simple click on the phone number or email address that appears on the firm’s webpage.

“If I’m calling you from the same device I’m looking at the phone number on, I want to just be able to click it,” he says.

Lawyers also should keep in mind mobile devices when they’re writing blogposts, Kelsey says.

“People want resources like blogposts written with highlights and bulleted information because they’re reading it on a small device,” he says. “They don’t want long articles.”

“People are accessing information on the web through their mobile devices all the time, so it’s really important that the website accommodate the smaller screens and scales for different devices.”

— Stephen M. Prignano, McIntyre Tate

‘Conversational’ videos

The online videos produced as part of Murphy & King’s marketing plan are not the static podcasts typically associated with law firm websites. Instead, the firm opted for videos with a “conversational” style made under the direction of a former television producer that included varying camera angles and background music.

“If you’re going to do videos, they have to be done professionally,” Perry says.

The first series of Murphy & King videos provides attorney perspectives and case studies highlighting how the firm’s lawyers “unravel the complexity” of cases for their clients. For example, in one two-minute segment, litigator Daniel J. Lyne discusses the importance of visuals and storytelling in swaying judges and juries.

“We wanted videos that told a story rather than gave a lecture,” Perry says. “Rather than boasting about ourselves, we wanted to tell stories about our clients’ successes.”

In making the videos, the firm was careful to consider its audience, he adds.

“[Company] presidents and CEOs don’t want to listen to legal jargon,” Perry says. “They want to know and feel comfortable with the firm that will represent them.”

Thomas W. Lyons III is co-chair of the Rhode Island Bar Association’s Technology in the Practice Committee and a partner at the civil litigation firm Strauss, Factor, Laing & Lyons. While internet marketing vendors have recommended that Strauss Factor produce videos for its website, Lyons questions how effective they would be in recruiting clients for a firm that mainly defends out-of-state companies.

“I don’t have a feeling that a video is going to make a big difference to in-house counsel,” Lyons says. “I haven’t seen many firms that do corporate representation in litigation that have videos on their websites.”

The Providence lawyer does believe, however, that videos may be effective in selling an attorney on a personal level when it comes to representing individuals in personal injury, family law and probate matters.

“If that’s the kind of client you’re looking for, then the video may help to convey to that person that you are the type of lawyer they would like to have represent them,” Lyons says.

“I don’t have a feeling that a video is going to make a big difference to in-house counsel.”

— Thomas W. Lyons III, Strauss, Factor, Laing & Lyons

Blogging your best bet?

Prignano says his firm hasn’t tried adding videos or podcasts to its website, though he’s well aware that other firms have experimented with those mediums.

Prignano sees more value in blogs and says his firm places an emphasis on demonstrating to clients and prospective clients through blogposts that it is on top of developments in core areas of practice, such as domestic relations.

“It’s a useful thing to get ahead of news of legal developments in your practice area because it shows to your prospective clients that you’re on top of the latest developments and competent,” he says.

“Your content needs to be interesting, pertinent and useful,” adds Todd & Weld’s Catalano. “A blog just can’t be a bragging tool. It needs to be something that distributes substantive information to a very interested audience in a very specific area of law.”

While the idea of having podcasts may sound appealing, Prignano questions whether those in his firm’s target audience would have the patience to listen to them.

“One of the nice things about a blog is you can pick and choose the things that are of interest to you instead of having to sit through the entire podcast and figure out if somebody is going to mention something that’s useful,” he says.

While Catalano agrees that blogging is important, he thinks podcasts are the “way of the future” for online marketing.

“Podcasts are a way for a person to learn about you, your practice area and important legal developments in a very short amount of time as they’re walking or driving to work,” he says.

Kelsey agrees that many website visitors may not have the patience for an online video or podcast. For those web surfers who prefer the written word, Kelsey says law firm websites as a best practice should provide transcripts of podcasts and videos for people who want to quickly skim through material for the information they want.

Meanwhile, he questions the effectiveness of online videos that simply provide an overview of the types of cases a firm takes and how the firm’s attorneys handle those cases.

“I don’t think a lot of consumers want to watch that,” he says.

Instead, Kelsey recommends creating videos that help answer questions a potential client may have. For example, his firm’s website includes tools for creating sample worksheets for parenting plans and tools to calculate alimony and child support under current state guidelines.

He says those tools are a “huge draw” to the website both with respect to prospective clients as well as other divorce attorneys, from whom he gets referrals for his mediation services.