Little League, Big Returns: The Power of Local Engagement

by Omnizant

Examples of Sponsorship Opportunities

Don’t feel the need to reinvent the wheel! Sponsorship is about giving a boost to a local initiative and then riding their coattails. You’re just supporting a group that’s already working hard.

Sponsorship ideas for lawyers:

• Local sports teams (adult or kids)

• Farmers markets

• Toy drive

• School supply drive

• Volunteer trash clean-up days

• 5k races

• Giveaways

• Scholarships

• Community auctions

• Other grassroots events

Start by checking your local bar association guidelines to understand its rules around things like giveaways and sponsorships.

Next, ask the organization whether they would prefer money, time, or materials. Some organizations simply need an injection of cash, others need human power. When reaching out, law firms should highlight their commitment to the local community and the value they can bring as sponsors.

Then, agree on how you’ll be showcased as a sponsor. Your logo could be emblazoned on the back of jerseys, on a banner, on a gift package for participants, or on the event program and website. You could even ask to speak at the kickoff event—or throw out the first pitch at a game.

How to Pick the Right Sponsor Opportunities

Exposure is good, but smart exposure is better. If you need some guidance on identifying a suitable organization for your law firm, here’s how we identify a smart sponsorship opportunity:

• People: The event participants reflect the firm’s target audience.

• Topic: The event’s topic or values align with the firm’s brand values.

• Impact: The sponsorship relationship would be mutually beneficial.

Here’s an example. Say you’re a personal injury law firm focused on car accident injuries. Which is a better fit, a Little League sponsorship or volunteer community cleanup day?

Option 1: Little League

• People: Kids and their families

• Topic: Competition, support local talent

• Impact: New jerseys for the team and brand exposure

Option 2: Community Clean-up Day

• People: Active civic-minded locals

• Topic: Safe streets, take care of each other

• Impact: Improve quality of life on city sidewalks

In this case, the community clean-up day seems better aligned with this firm’s target audience, values, and impact. There’s potential for an ongoing relationship based on mutual priorities (safety on the streets) and, for the price of coffee and doughnuts, the ROI could be quite high. Ready to reach out? Keep it simple when reaching out about sponsorship opportunities. Try one of these templates:

• We have been following your organization’s incredible work within our community and would like to express our interest in becoming a sponsor. We believe that together, we can amplify your results and positively impact more people. Can we join forces?

• I am reaching out on behalf of our law firm to explore the possibility of a sponsorship partnership. We admire the work you do and would be thrilled to support your efforts. Let’s chat!

• At our law firm, we firmly believe in supporting local organizations that make a real difference. Your organization’s commitment to [community cause] aligns perfectly with our values, and we would like to explore a potential sponsorship partnership.

• Our law firm shares a common vision for community empowerment, and we would love to contribute to your cause through a sponsorship collaboration. Let’s explore the possibilities!

How to Get the Most Mileage out of Your Investment

To maximize the impact of local engagement and sponsorships, law firms can employ several strategies.

Firstly, press releases play a crucial role in garnering attention and generating local SEO mentions. By crafting compelling press releases with newsworthy angles, law firms can attract media coverage and build valuable backlinks for improved search engine rankings. It can be helpful to foster relationships with local journalists and publications to increase the chances of coverage.

Secondly, leveraging social media platforms allows firms to broadcast their engagement and continue building a relationship with the local community. With the permission of participants, capture photos or videos of the event and share them on your firm’s social channels.

Finally, consider collaborating with a legal marketing agency to streamline everything, ensuring coordinated coverage and maximizing your exposure.

Review and Next Steps

Take a break from chasing the Google rankings and meet your neighbors. Investing in your local community can yield major fruit. A smart sponsorship opportunity aligns with your audience, your values, and your goals. n

Since 2006, Omnizant’s team of digital marketing experts, designers, developers, and writers has helped over 2,000 law firms develop powerful websites that drive business growth. Learn more at www.omnizant.com.

Video is becoming more than a “nice to have”—it’s essential for law firm marketing. Video not only gains interest across more channels, but it can also add credibility to your content. Production value doesn’t matter as much as the information presented—if you can provide value and education to your audience, they will be happy to engage with your videos. To that end, we’ve put together a list of topics that make great video content. If you’re stumped when it comes to subject matter, take a look at the following list of 8 topics for law firm videos.

8 Types of Videos Every Law Firm Needs

1. A Client Testimonial

Getting a client to share why they trust you can mean a lot to prospects or new clients. It’s a form of social proof, which plays a huge role in a potential client’s decision process. When possible, you want to share specific and tangible results. You can do this through brief case studies, a collaborative exchange such as a Q & A with a current client, or by asking a previous client to share a quote via a clip. By putting your client testimonials into video format, you appear more trustworthy, as now potential clients can see this testimonial is coming from a real, relatable client.

Tips for creation:

• Make the focus of filming on the client and its representative

• Include the client representative’s name and title in the quote

• Allow the client to dictate the script and use their own words

2. “Explainer” Videos

This type of video can drive a lot of engagement, but you need to have a strategy before posting. What is the goal of the video? Who is the audience? Really think about the problems

8 Types of Videos

Every Law Firm Needs in 2023

by Kevin Vermeulen

your readers are facing, and how to break down the steps that address those problems. Then, shape your story around those components. Explainer videos are a great place to add other media. Think of explainer videos as a video version of your ‘How to’ or guide type of blog posts.

Tips for creation:

• You can use infographics, animation, or live action to walk people through the steps you’re talking about

• Don’t be afraid to repurpose other content like blogs for this video

• Leverage text to make steps clear

3. Short Form Social Media Video

If you’re active on social (and you should be), you can pull some fodder from there for short videos. Consider items that you’ve posted on social—such as behind the scenes or Q & A items—and link to them and elaborate in video content. If you’re featuring something timely on social, such as an upcoming webinar or sharing an award your firm won— elaborate on that material and create a quick clip that your social media posts can link to. Since the creation of TikTok, short form videos are now performing best on social media. Stick to creating videos for social media that are biteable and easily consumable.

Tips for creation:

• Always include closed captions

• Optimize content for small screens

• Consider your thumbnail and make sure it’s eye catching

4. A Website Video

When people are making a decision about which firm to work with, they want to get a feel for your attorney’s personality, your culture and mission statement, and what you stand for. Providing this information on the homepage or “about us” page in a quick and efficient way is helpful for website visitors. Apply a personal touch to your videos and ensure that content is genuine, personable, and helpful. For example, you might have the founder of your firm share why he or she started their own company or highlight a non-profit your firm is passionate about and why.

Tips for creation:

• Focus on making your values clear

• Make sure text, font, colors, and images are in line with the branding of your website

• Use real associates and attorneys in the video

• Make your practice areas clear

5. Tips Video

Who doesn’t love getting tips from experts? Videos with specific tactics can live as extra content on your website and further explain things that your clients may have questions about. For example, if you’re a DUI attorney, you could walk people through the “dos and don’ts” of a traffic stop. A family law attorney can lay out the different stages of a typical child custody case. You don’t have to take a deep dive into every subject, but providing helpful information is a great place to start and begin building trust with your client base. Share these videos on social media or to your email database.

Tips for creation:

• You can repurpose blogs into this video type

• Include the number of tips in the title and number each tip throughout the video

• Have an attorney go over the tips

• Include a strong call to action on next steps they should take if they need further help

6. Attorney Bio Videos

In these videos, you’ll share professional as well as personal information on your firm’s lawyers. Viewers will be interested in an attorney’s background, experience, education, family life, and hobbies. This helps personalize your attorneys and humanize your brand, so that individuals feel more comfortable before they even meet your staff. You can even incorporate photos of the attorney featured for a more engaging approach. We suggest posting these to social media and to the individual attorney’s bio page on the website.

Tips for creation:

• Make sure attorneys speak clearly and slowly

• Have the script written in a way that is natural to speak

• Include the attorneys’ names and specialties in the video

7. Paralegal Insights

These professionals are a key part of any law firm. In many cases, clients interact with a paralegal more than their attorney. That’s why it’s important for paralegals to create their own thought leadership. Ask paralegals to choose a topic they’re passionate about and create a video that highlights their unique expertise and perspective.

Tips for creation:

• Coach paralegals on what it means to be a thought leader

• Include some background on what types of cases the paralegal has worked on

• When creating the script, include excerpts from each paralegal’s unique experiences and perspectives

8. Podcast Teaser

Promote audio snippets from podcasts, radio shows, etc. using video. There are tools available (such as Wavve) that can turn your audio into custom-branded, animated marketing videos for social sharing. Doing so is a great way to generate interest in your podcast and promote your latest topics and speakers.

Tips for creation:

• Include excerpts from the most important parts of the episode

• Make sure the background color, fonts, and branding match your podcast show’s branding

• Include some visual elements to accompany the audio like headshots of the guest and host and sound waves

Takeaway: Online video has become an increasingly important part of an overall digital marketing strategy, and for good reason. When done right, video can help your law firm be found online, strengthen relationships with your audience, and provide credibility that is essential in the legal world.

Kevin Vermeulen is Partner and Chief Operating Officer for Good2bSocial. He has over 30 years of marketing and advertising experience, including 22 years working in various senior management roles, including Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Marketing Officer for ALM Media, a leading legal publisher, helping lawyers, law firms, consultants and companies grow their business. During Kevin’s tenure at ALM, he worked with professional services companies in the financial, digital, real estate and legal industries. Learn more at: www. good2bsocial.com.

On July 3, 2023, a new app called Threads appeared on the App Store with a release date of July 6 being planned. Threads is a new social media platform developed by Meta—Facebook and Instagram’s parent company—which is being positioned as an alternative to Twitter.

As many law firms start to learn about Threads, they may be wondering whether or not they will experiment with the platform. And in turn, law firms who are on the brink of dropping their Twitter strategy are looking to Threads to see if it could become a replacement for the type of content Twitter is known for.

Backed by an almost $800 billion dollar company like Meta, it’s clear that law firms can trust that Threads is on the right trajectory.

But just what exactly is Threads like? And should law firms give the platform a go? We break it down in this article:

What Is Threads?

Threads is a platform “…built by Instagram. Threads is positioned as an app where people can have real-time, public conversations with one another.”

Over the past several months, many Twitter users have been disgruntled by the numerous changes happening to Twitter under its new leadership. In fact, Twitter has frequently fallen below its weekly sales forecasts, at times even as low as 30%. Many platforms have tried to emerge to replace Twitter, but none have been successful. However, this new Meta-backed app is promising, given the power and trust held by a company as large and well-known as Meta.

Threads looks to replace Twitter, once known as the online ‘public town square’ where users could easily swap information, ideas, and news.

As of July 10th, Threads already has 100 million accounts, and many top brands have started joining, including DLA Piper, White & Case, and Cooley. And it’s no wonder so many are hopping on Threads, as users already on Instagram can easily create an account using their existing account/ data.

Threads Features

So, what features does Threads have, and how is it different from Twitter?

The good news is, Threads is in its very early days, and