Content marketing and sharing content via email and social media has never been a more important way to communicate with clients and prospects, and to build your brand and business.
You should of course be sensitive to current market conditions, and make your content relevant to what’s happening in the world right now (such as creating coronavirus-related thought leadership and webinars), but this is not the time to disappear from your clients – or to suspend your marketing activities. In fact, this is the time to lean in and position yourself as a thought leader and authority in your respective area of the law.
There are so many things you could be doing right now to better position yourself in the short- and long-term. Here are some ideas on the content marketing front.
- Step into your clients’ shoes – what are their pain points? What is keeping them up at night? Write about those issues in their language and don’t sit on it – time is of the essence. The content you produce and share should be client-focused, helpful and value-added
- Read the content (articles from third parties) thoroughly before you share it to ensure the subject matter is aligns with your values and your clients’ interests
- Turn webinars about the coronavirus into written pieces and turn written pieces into webinars – now is the time to be creative and clever about how you repurpose your materials
- Always show readers how issues impacts their business – I think every practice area can find a way to tie in the coronavirus to what they do – clients are worried about how this will impact their businesses.
- Promote your good works – highlight pro bono and community service initiatives related to the coronavirus – if you aren’t doing this, do it now
- Be visual, repurpose and curate as much as possible
- Write timeless “Why” and “How-To” pieces that can be promoted multiple times
- Cross sell practices and capabilities through content
- Avoid random acts of content/one and done
- Select your platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) – ONLY go where your clients are
- Adjust your content for each medium – do not post the same content to each platform
- Build an editorial/content calendar to track posts
- Train your employees on how to use social media to tap into their networks
- Reuse and repurpose your content to make it work harder and smarter for you
- Effectively use hashtags to make your content more discoverable – use tools such as Ritetag and Hashtagifyme to find relevant hashtags
- Include calls to action (CTAs) so that you can capture contact information of those interested in your content
- Understand how SEO works and use it to your advantage
- Use analytics and data to help refine your strategy
- Craft strong headlines for every piece of content
- Pay it forward by promoting the content of key contacts and clients
- Use a mix of platforms to engage with your target audiences (video, written content, podcasts, etc.)