The four stages to building high-quality content for clients

A survey undertaken by Passle in April revealed some candid views from general counsel (GCs) on the content marketing that they receive from law firms.

From a sample of 100 GCs split equally between the US and UK, only 8% said that their firms delivered enough timely and relevant content.

Yet as the survey showed, GCs recognise the importance of updates with 77% stating that they spend five or more hours a week bringing themselves up to speed with legal developments.

Providing useful and relevant content to clients was something where lawyers were actually ahead of the game. In the 1990s, David Maister, a thought leader in the marketing of professional services, said that written client briefings were the best affirmation of a firm’s abilities as opposed to other forms of marketing such as brochures or advertising. At that time, a newsletter directed to a mailing list of contacts that was quite personal to the firm fulfilled an important role.

But since the mid-2000s, the way we access content has changed markedly. A digital “content marketing” industry has emerged, becoming the driver of consumer brands and goods, as well as a wide array of services as buyers have eschewed advertising in favour of doing their own research online before considering a purchase.

It is now the service provider which describes how it solves market problems or the manufacturer which uses powerful storytelling that grab our attention.

So why, 30 years later, have law firms not kept pace? Why is the content they produce not satisfying client needs?

In our experience it boils down to four elements: Purpose, Planning, Production and People.

1. Purpose

The first question is: what are you trying to achieve with your content? As the Passle survey indicates, the purpose should be to give clients and prospects useful insights which assist them in being brought up to date. The purpose must be tied to your business goals. You should be seeking to influence and grow clients in areas where you want to receive more instructions.
Why else would you devote time to writing? If it is to impress colleagues, or worse influence friends on social media, then you are better off concentrating on billable work as without the client-focused purpose you will likely fall foul of the next item.

2. Planning

While tools like Passle itself are making it easier for lawyers to write and distribute content, what if the content fails the ‘relevant and useful’ test? There is only one way to begin content marketing and that is to identify the key challenges and pain points of your target market.

It is best to talk to clients because, as the survey figures show, clients will appreciate the opportunity to highlight key areas of interest for them and where they want to be up to speed.
Expectations are much higher than the 1990s’ newsletter with clients expecting to receive tailored updates. According to the Passle survey, 40% of the GCs interviewed expect such insights from their law firm.

If you cannot speak to clients then at least track what they are reading online, explore the key issues covered by trade media and look at what their company is discussing in its own content marketing.

Such research will also show you if competitors have already covered a subject or invested heavily in research in which case you may want to think again when it comes to the planned topic.

3. Production

Once you identify your topics and target audience, then don’t start finding people to write. Set up an editorial planner and decide, for each different topic, the depth you think is needed to cover that. This will then determine whether you do a series of short 800-1000 word posts on a topic or decide to devote more significant resources and produce a white paper or research report backed up by events.

Excel can be useful for planning but we prefer project management software as it can be accessed by all relevant team members, allows you to add ideas, comments and drafts, and shows you all stages of production including when drafts have been approved. You can also add actual links, social media performance and PR mentions.

If a lawyer cannot be available at sign-off then you can keep the production wheels turning and latest drafts are not lost in inboxes. We customise our software for each law firm client to make it extremely easy to use.

4. People

Which brings us to our final point: making people comfortable with the process. Some lawyers may suffer from imposter syndrome when it comes to writing content. Or conversely, they may think they could have won a Pulitzer prize in another life.

Both can be addressed by training. The hesitant lawyer will find the planning and purpose discussions give them more confidence to produce something useful. And for the closet columnist, those steps instil some discipline into the writer before they jump in on a topic without thinking about purpose and relevance.

My colleague James Nurton has shared a post looking at how training associates in skills such as content marketing not only nurtures client relationships but also improves the opportunities for retention. For us, it is one of the yawning gaps in client relationship management: while partners should of course be the primary contact, it is a wasted opportunity not to train and employ those that are used to social media in your content ideation and production.

And what should the training incur?

Lawyers can be a given a roadmap on the stages described above to get to the writing stage but the key, when they are ready to put pen to paper, is to think about the reader.

GCs may be lawyers but they don’t want overdetailed, over-jargoned pieces full of footnotes: they are busy members of a company and want to know, in language which they can share, what the implication of a case are for their business or how a new regulatory announcement will affect their operations. Some of those who are clients will not be trained lawyers.

So you need to educate your teams to think and write for an audience of business people rather than for colleagues.

An alternative to training is to look to agencies which can support firms on content marketing. An agency can quickly pull the thoughts of busy lawyers into a workable draft, or they can put together comparative pieces drawing on the views of lawyers in different offices.

Ask for examples of the agency’s work and interview the team on their understanding of how your firm works, its key sectors and practices, and how they would position those through content marketing.

In the same way that a GC expects a law firm to understand its business, you need an agency that understands the needs of your law firm and its client base. If not, how can they create the relevant and useful content that both you and the client require?

Law firms have a depth of knowledge and understanding within their ranks which can be of great value to clients. But unless they are relentlessly focused on client needs in terms of producing excellent content as well as first-rate legal advice, then the number of GCs reporting their satisfaction with law firm content will continue to be very low.