Law Firm Marketing Magazine

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

Volume 2 | Issue 2

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Editor’s Note

I first heard about Mark Romano when Michael A. DeMayo, a prominent personal injury trial lawyer in North Carolina, indicated that he was a tremendous resource of information with regard to deceptive insurance company trade practices. Attorney DeMayo used information produced by Mr. Romano, even quoting him in a 4 part series of blog posts he did about Colossus and “horrendous insurance industry tactics.”

Read Part 1

Read Part 2

Read Part 3

Read Part 4

C R E D I T S

LFM

LAW FIRM MARKETING Editor-In-Chief

It is sickening to hear stories about corporations like Allstate that make heartless decisions that so negatively impact hard-working individuals in a way that changes the course of their lives. As personal injury lawyers, I believe that one way to combat the sometimes deceptive practices of the insurance industry is to clearly identify them, document them and make them public to better educate consumers. That is what Mark Romano has done, it is what Attorney DeMayo has done, and we encourage you to feel free to use some of the information in this issue of Law Firm Marketing Magazine to do the same.

We were very excited last month to learn that our Google Analytics report shows that our average visitor duration for Law Firm Marketing Magazine is over 17 minutes. I think that is a strong indication that interactive digital content has a bright future! I encourage you to take the time to listen to the full interview with marketing legend Stephen Fairley. His segment is truly a master class in legal marketing. Thanks also to Dan Goldstein, owner of Page 1 Solutions and an expert in website development. And thanks to my dear friend - Attorney Zane Cagle who shares his moving story and how he is incorporating it into a new nonprofit that will serve not only his local community, but also the growth and positioning of his law firm. Zane’s segment is a great example of story driven brand marketing and how to use your story to enhance and expand the reach of your business.

Lots more inside….

Thanks for sharing a few minutes with us.

Tap here to leave your comments, questions and topic requests on our facebook page.

Cindy Speaker, CEO of Speaker Media and Marketing, has been called the “Secret Weapon” of personal injury lawyers and trial attorneys throughout the U.S. She is also the Producer and Co-Director of the poweful new documentary: Well of Dreams: The Journey of Anne Okelo.

Cindy is always looking over the horizon for new technologies that can help her clients reach as many of their potential clients as possible. She takes great pride in introducing the power of emerging technologies and strategies to the law firms that hire her to chart a course. www.CindySpeaker.com

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

CINDY SPEAKER

cindy@cindyspeaker.com

Art Director JAY KUNKEL

jay@cindyspeaker.com

Copy Editor

ALYSON WRIGHT ...

Publisher

CINDY SPEAKER cindy@cindyspeaker.com

Director of Video CHRIS MERCURY

chris@cindyspeaker.com

Sales Director CINDY SPEAKER

cindy@cindyspeaker.com

Layout & Design JAY KUNKEL

jay@cindyspeaker.com

Video Production CHRIS MERCURY

chris@cindyspeaker.com

Content Editor JAY KUNKEL

jay@cindyspeaker.com

LFM is manufactured and printed in the United States.

LFM welcomes unsolicited articles but reserves complete editorial control over all submitted material. All articles, letters, or reviews represent the opinion of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher or editors. All materials become the property of LFM and cannot be returned unless a stamped, self-addressed envelope is included. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system without the express written permission of the publisher.

SPEAKER

MEDIA PRESS

Volume 2 | Issue 2

Featured Articles Cover Story Colossus Cover Up

Former Allstate Colossus Expert

Mark Romano

Discusses the Colossus software and how it is sometimes misused by insurance companies.

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Article By ALYSON WRIGHT Photography By ALEX CLANEY PHOTOGRAPHY

Mark Romano

Mark Romano, a 54-year-old husband and father of two, was raised in a very service-oriented family. His mother was a librarian and his father worked with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. He graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor’s degree in Risk Management and Insurance. From a young age, he knew he wanted to help people.

Three Keys to Becoming a Rainmaker:

Lead Generation, Lead Conversion & Client Retention

with Stephen Fairley

Over the last twelve years, The Rainmaker Institute® has worked with and consulted for over 9,000 attorneys, all across the country, in virtually every single practice area imaginable.

Fairley says that The Rainmaker Institute specializes in three major areas. These also coincide with three major areas that every single law firm needs to focus on.

Marketing Through Community Outreach with Zane Cagle

Zane Cagle is a St. Louis-based personal injury attorney who is working to successfully use civic involvement to help the local community, while at the same time building his firm’s reputation. Cagle recently started a new non-profit called Cagle Rural Reading. The program’s mission is to increase literacy through technology in predominantly rural areas.

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

Volume 2 | Issue 2

Table of Contents A Multiple Website Strategy For Trial Lawyers Our data continues to show that search – especially on Google – drives leads and cases to our attorneys’ practices. So how can you get an edge?

by DAN GOLDSTEIN

How Much Information Do You Have?

You’re spending the money to brand your firm and get referrals. Your website is optimized, appealing, and generating traffic. Now what?

by BRYAN BILLIG

Why Ignoring Your Online Reputation Can Be Harmful Google made major changes that affected 80 million local businesses worldwide.

Four major “game changers” have occurred as a result of these changes.

by JON KEEL

Going Mobile: The Importance of Having a Mobile-Friendly Website It’s no secret that mobile phones have quickly become a staple for the American consumer. Is your website optimized for mobile devices? with CINDY SPEAKER

Reputation Reps Ratings and reviews have been printed, broadcasted, and distributed for decades. Now they have moved to the Internet. with CINDY SPEAKER

Marketing Quick Tip You Say You Want A Resolution...

Understanding the basics of image resolution and file types.

by JAY KUNKEL

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

Volume 2 | Issue 2

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Photograph by: Alex Claney Photography

Colossus Cover Up Inside Man: A Privileged Look into The Secret World of Colossus

BIOGRAPHY:

Mark Romano, a 54-year-old husband and father of two, was raised in a very service-oriented family. His mother was a librarian and his father worked with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. He graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor’s degree in Risk Management and Insurance. From a young age, he knew he wanted to help people.

In 2011, Romano became the CFA’s Director of Consumer Claims Projects.

Last summer, he and Hunter co-wrote a report entitled “Low Ball: An Insider’s Look at How Insurers Can Manipulate Computerized Systems to Broadly Underpay Injury Claims”, which broke down the “ways that the Colossus software can be manipulated to favor the insurance carrier, to the detriment, of course, of the policy holder, or the thirdparty claimant.”

This article is based on a phone interview with Mark Romano conducted by Cindy Speaker, and supplemented with external research.

Colossus.

The word, itself, sounds like the name of an ancient mythological creature, or a long-forgotten monster, remembered only in stories and legend. In reality, “Colossus” is a lot of things.

It is the name of a fictional superhero in the universe of Marvel comics, and also the title of a virtual board game. It is the moniker of several bands, part of the headline of a 1970’s movie, and the signature of a massive search-engine compendium. According to Merriam and Webster, colossus is a “thing of immense size or power.” Mark Romano would wholeheartedly agree.

The existence of Colossus, the program used by some insurance companies to assess risk and process claims, is not a new discovery. Most trial lawyers who have any involvement with insurance companies have had an awareness of Colossus, and its various other iterations (for example, Xactimate, a similar program focused on home insurance claims). But, with the recent release of insider documents that provide concrete details of Allstate’s use of Colossus, the maelstrom of controversy surrounding the contentious program continues to escalate.

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The Inside Man

Mark Romano, a 54-year-old husband and father of two, was raised in a very service-oriented family. His mother was a librarian and his father worked with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. He graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor’s degree in Risk Management and Insurance. From a young age, he knew he wanted to help people, and his first jobs as an insurance adjuster fulfilled that desire.

“I have had the privilege of working, at one point in my career, for a company that had a unique philosophy: Hanover, who at the time did have a very moral philosophy,” Romano said. “You were trained to treat people right…that was the expectation, and that was stressed by all employees, all the way up and down the line.” But after a particularly bad hurricane season in 1992, The Hanover Insurance Group began closing offices, so Romano took the opportunity to move up the career ladder, leaving Hanover and starting with CNA (Continental National American Group).

In 1999, Allstate bought out CNA’s personal insurance division, and renamed it Encompass Insurance Company. This was the point at which Romano was first introduced to Allstate’s philosophy on Colossus. CNA was already using the program, but “they were using it in a way that was more of an assist,” only one of many information sources employed to evaluate a claim.

However, Romano soon discovered that Allstate typically used the Colossus results as the final verdict. Tapped

by Allstate executives to head up the program’s implementation on former CNA customers, he was soon transferred to Allstate’s home base where he became the “Colossus subject matter expert.”

“They said ‘hey, if you want it, here’s the job, and you’ve got to save us 33 million bucks in three years.’ ” Romano said. He accepted, and was able to “tune” Colossus in a variety of ways that created lower claims payments and, ultimately, saved the company the specified $33 million, and more. As a result of this marked success, Romano’s boss developed a project plan “that identifie[d] particular parts of the country where we [could] squeeze the tuning some more.” She predicted that this would eliminate another $2 million or more in claims payments.

After eight years on the job, and under increased pressure to “tune” Colossus in order to reduce claims payments and save money, Romano was living with a heavy conscience. In fact, the job was quite literally making him sick. He found himself plagued with frequent bouts of vertigo, migraines, and insomnia that doctors couldn’t explain and medication didn’t seem to help.

Finally, in the summer of 2009, Romano left Allstate, and Colossus behind.

Not long afterwards, he contacted Robert Hunter, a director with the Consumer Federation of America. Rather than simply leaving his life with Colossus behind, Romano decided to cross the battle line, joining the fight against what he believes is an unfair system that harms consumers.

“Colossus has tremendous potential as an analytical tool, “ Romano said.

“But the problems began to arise when the human element was almost entirely eliminated from the claims processing procedures.”

Fighting Back

In 2011, Romano became the CFA’s Director of Consumer Claims Projects.

Last summer, he and Hunter co-wrote a report entitled “Low Ball: An Insider’s Look at How Insurers Can Manipulate Computerized Systems to Broadly Underpay Injury Claims”, which broke down the “ways that the Colossus software can be manipulated to favor the insurance carrier, to the detriment, of course, of the policy holder, or the third-party claimant.”

Romano notes in the report that “[m]any of the concerns about Colossus expressed by the legal community and regulators have focused on the potential for direct manipulation of the tuning, which results in lower settlement values. This is one way in which consumers can be harmed.”

In fact, it was these misgivings that led to a multi-state audit of insurance companies’ use of programs like Colossus to evaluate claims. In an ironic appropriation of the term plugged heavily by CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation), the company Tap here to view Low Ball: An Insider’s that sells Colossus, the findings indicated no widespread evidence Look at How Insurers of claims underpayment, but rather they unearthed a failure to Can Manipulate Computerized Systems apply Colossus consistently across the nation. to Broadly Underpay

But what the examination failed to unearth, according to Injury Claims Romano, is a far more understated “tuning” of Colossus. “[I] nsurers can also unjustifiably lower a claim’s offer in a more subtle manner by carefully choosing what data is considered or excluded. This form of manipulation is more difficult to identify, because it requires deep knowledge of the claims process and of how the Colossus system functions.”

Shining a Light into Colossus’ Dark Cave:

On Saturday, December 1st, during the fall convention of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in Washington, D.C., Mark Romano and Robert Hunter gave a presentation on Colossus to the Market Regulation and Consumer Affairs Committee. The NAIC also brought in representatives from CSC, and ISO (Insurance Services Office), the company that sells a competing product.

During this meeting, Romano released to the public what he refers to as “extremely flammable documents” that “clearly show what the purpose of Colossus is.” While in public statements and sales pitches, Colossus is touted for its ability to bring a “consistency” to insurance companies, the document that was handed to Romano focuses on using the program to save money.

“This is the document that outlines how we were going to save the $33 million,” Romano said. “It lays out the whole game plan.” The documents—exact copies of the plan that was presented to Romano when he was initially offered the job—are eye opening, to say the least.

Using phrases like “projected dollar savings,” the files place a strict emphasis on using Colossus as a way of saving the company substantial amounts of money, at the expense of clients. In his “Low-Ball” report, Romano noted that the semantic change—from “savings” to “consistency”—was primarily implemented as a safeguard against potential litigation “contending that the savings were based on unjustifiably low claims’ offers.”

“When CSC gets up there, what they talk about is, primarily, the consistency,” Romano said. “And that’s what most of the industry people talk about is how the product will lend consistency to insurance carriers and so forth.” “full potential savings” But in a telling revelation, within the papers that Romano recently released, the word “consistency” does not appear a single time.

Instead, phrases such as “full potential savings,” “average savings,” and “additional cost savings” are peppered throughout the proposal.

In fact, part of the plan focuses on how further monetary benefits could be squeezed from Colossus if it was to be applied inconsistently across different areas of the country. The proposal—which defines itself as an “opportunity to retune identified economic regions within the Colossus system, which should yield additional cost savings”—identifies four regions (Atlanta, Dallas, Monmouth Junction, and Quincy) as areas in which, based on calculations, an additional $2 million could be saved. This is referred to in the proposal as a “retuning opportunity.”

To Mark Romano, though, this is simply more evidence that “what it’s doing, basically is consistently low-balling people…It’s all about savings, not about consistency.” CSC charges millions of dollars for a license to Colossus. So, from a purely economic standpoint, a company purchasing the program for the sake of consistency simply does not make sense, Romano contends.

A CSC internal email from May of 2005 reinforces Romano’s assertion. An excerpt reads: “I know we are hamstrung from a legal standpoint, so there may be nothing else we can do, but…Would be nice to have a stronger compelling reason to buy than improving consistency. I do not believe that our clients have spen[t] millions of dollars on Colossus just to get consistent.” Voices within the company responsible for selling Colossus were uncomfortable with the adjustment in terminology.

But it wasn’t just the adjustment of word choice that was causing problems for CSC. Throughout the investigation of a major national class action suit, Hensley v. Computer Sciences Corporation, which was settled in 2009, two CSC VIPs gave testimony that reiterates the immense potential of Colossus to powerfully impact claims settlements.

During a 2008 deposition, Edward Charlton, CSC Vice President, and one of the representatives who gave a presentation on Colossus the same day that Romano presented to the NAIC committee, “agreed that it is possible to tune Colossus to get desired projected savings and tune it up and down, like a water spigot,” according to the “Low-Ball Report.” Similarly, during his own deposition, John Tyler, the Director of Colossus Services for CSC, explained that Colossus’ “tuning can be moved” to achieve particular results. For example, if an insurer set a goal of achieving total 15 percent savings, then “in a short phrase, you can set tuning to potentially achieve that 15 percent savings.”

In a risk assessment portion of the same document that proposed tuning based on regional economics, the author reports that a benefit of the proposal would be “reduced values and corresponding settlements” while a major barrier would be the “acceptance of reduced values by adjusters and the possibility that this will require stronger negotiations to resolve cases.” In essence, this seems to imply that the primary benefit of the use of Colossus is the money-saving capabilities, which would be implemented with the understanding that adjusters may not agree with the results, and that claims may be more difficult to resolve. There is no mention of using Colossus to improve consistency.

Furthermore, the original plan for converting CNA clients over to Allstate’s use of Colossus discusses the establishment of a coordinator trained in Colossus for all regional claims offices. Two of the main responsibilities of these coordinators would be “proper application of comparative negligence” and identifying “annual tuning needs.”

Here, it is evident that even before the specialized tuning based on economic regions was introduced to Romano, there was an expectation of systematic, generalized “tuning.”

“Eventually, we would expect to see downward tuning as outlined in this decision document to capture the full potential savings in this area,” the proposal reads.

This proposed conversion from CNA’s Colossus to Allstate’s Colossus allowed for communication only with internal Allstate adjusters, and not with the “agent, premium paying customer, vendor, or shared services.” The team members responsible for the proposal’s creation recognized the potential for “resistance to the new program from the field,” suggesting possible internal and external trepidation regarding Allstate’s use of Colossus. And yet, they still reported that they were “highly confident” that the results could be achieved. Which, Romano readily recognizes, they were.

Finding Answers

Interestingly, Romano doesn’t believe that getting rid of Colossus is the answer.

“I think it’s unrealistic to advocate for its abolishment. But what I think is reasonable to advocate for is for some form of regulation and oversight of these types of products. But that’s going to require that the regulators have a knowledge, a true knowledge, of how they work and how they can be manipulated.”

Romano also strongly believes that a major part of this revolution in the world of Colossus begins with trial lawyers.

“They know just enough to be dangerous,” he said. But, for the most part, personal injury attorneys are not acquainted well enough with Colossus to be able to use this knowledge to the greatest benefit for their clients.

“They look at it very simplistically, like someone just took the knob and turned it. But it’s way more than that. There’s a lot of education that still needs to go on with the plaintiff attorneys in regards to how this thing is done,” Romano said. “In order to be able to regulate [Colossus]…you’ve got to have, basically people who have a bodily injury background and who have a Colossus background.”

Romano says that the best way for trial lawyers to combat Colossus is for them to educate themselves on how the program works. And it’s not just Colossus that they should examine. There are a number of other similar programs in the world of insurance companies, and there is also software that works in tandem with Colossus. Attorneys need to “understand as much as possible what is going on behind the scenes so that they can assist their clients as best as possible.”

To follow up with Mark Romano

Tap Here

mark@romanoclaimsconsulting.com or call: 708-525-3975

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

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ALYSON WRIGHT Contributing Author

Volume 2 | Issue 2

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Three Keys to Becoming a Rainmaker Watch the Exclusive LFM interview with The Rainmaker Institute’s CEO, Stephen Fairley

BIOGRAPHY:

This article is based on a phone interview with Stephen Fairley conducted by Cindy Speaker, and supplemented with external research.

O

ver the last twelve years, The Rainmaker Institute® has worked with and consulted for over 9,000 attorneys, all across the country, in virtually every single practice area imaginable.

TRI primarily focuses on working with small to mid-sized law firms, which law firm marketing coach Stephen Fairley defines as practices with between one and 25 attorneys. When working with law firms, Fairley says that The Rainmaker Institute specializes in three major areas. These also coincide with three major areas that every single law firm needs to focus on.

The first area is lead generation. This is exactly what it sounds like: getting more leads into the top of the funnel. This can be achieved through many different kinds of business development: marketing, networking, public relations, social media, search engine optimization, etc. But the biggest obstacle firm’s face is that lead generation is an extremely expensive proposition.

In fact, every year it gets more expensive to generate the same amount of leads that you produced in years past.

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Stephen Fairley is a nationally recognized law firm marketing expert, a Master Business Coach, professional speaker, best-selling author of 12 books and CEO of The Rainmaker Institute, the nation’s largest law firm marketing company specializing in small law firms. Stephen specializes in helping attorneys at small and mid-sized law firms rapidly increase their revenues by building a referral-based marketing system and improving their conversion rates.

In the last twelve years over 9,000 attorneys at hundreds of law firms have discovered how to find more clients fast and generate more referrals using the proven Rainmaker Marketing System.

For more info see www.TheRainmaker Institute.com. or visit www.

RainmakerReport.com for a free report on 5 easy steps to create your law firm marketing plan.

This is the case for two reasons: increased competition and new attorneys. There is currently one lawyer for every 300 people in the United States today. Compound that with the 43,600 law students graduating every year—who want your clients and are willing to charges less money than you can afford to—and lead generation becomes a costly endeavor. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it: firms still need to be able to “feed the beast”—to generate those leads.

The second area that The Rainmaker Institute focuses on is lead conversion, one of the most overlooked areas and the one that can have the fastest impact on a law firm’s revenues.

This is the five stage process of converting more prospects into paying clients and turning more browsers into buyers. As Fairley puts it, lead conversion is the process of converting someone from a suspect to a prospect to a paying client. And, unfortunately, most attorneys are not particularly skilled at this.

The institute refines the process of lead conversion into five stages. First, your firm must keep a good measurement of how many leads come into the top of the funnel.

Second, your firm must keep track of how many of those leads turn into appointments and, third, how many of those appointments actually show up. Fourthly, your firm must keep a record of how many people sign up at the initial consultation (before they walk out of the office) and, fifth, how many people sign up later. During their two day Rainmaker Retreat legal marketing intensive, TRI provides clients with over two dozen proven strategies to improve their lead conversion rates at each stage.

The third area that The Rainmaker Institute focuses on is client retention. Fairley points out that, while many lawyers believe that client retention is about keeping your clients happy, it’s actually much more than that. The idea of retaining clients actually centers on creating clients for life.

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Tap here for more information about The Rainmaker Institute.

Tap here for more information about the Rainmaker Retreat.

This might seem like an unrealistic goal for personal injury attorneys, because of the unlikely odds that a client will be seriously injured and need legal assistance more than once. But Fairley and the Institute focus on the proven strategy that there are two ways to grow your business through client retention. The first is with repeat business, wherein the client stays the same.

The second is through repeat referrals. This only occurs when the law firm maintains a long term, meaningful, and influential relationship with every client, even long after the legal transaction is completed.

And, Fairley notes, sending a monthly invoice does not constitute the cultivation of a relationship. Neither does simply sending an annual Christmas card. In a world of near constant contact and communication, lawyers and their firms must innovate new ways to establish and maintain relationships with their clients.

Tap Here to see all of the products available from The Rainmaker Institute!

X Article Written By:

ALYSON WRIGHT Contributing Author

Rainmaker in a Box: Volume 1 With Stephen Fairley

Includes: 4 DVDs and a Data DVD

Watch Stephen Fairley Live and Unplugged! Are you looking for specific strategies you can use in your law firm?

Rainmaker in a Box: Volume 2 With Stephen Fairley

Newly Released Cutting Edge Strategies!

Discover how top attorneys are growing their top line revenues, generating leads from social media and the internet, and increasing the quantity and quality of their referrals!

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

Tap here to listen to audio of the full interview!

Volume 2 | Issue 2

Marketing Through Community Outreach Watch the LFM INTERVIEW.

BIOGRAPHY:

Z

ane Cagle is a St. Louisbased personal injury attorney who is working to successfully use civic involvement to help the local community, while at the same time building his firm’s reputation. Cagle recently started a new non-profit called Cagle Rural Reading. The program’s mission is to increase literacy through technology in predominantly rural areas. The focus is near and dear to Cagle, as he grew up in rural area and had substantial difficulty with reading and reading comprehension as he was growing up. In fact, on his firm’s website he explains how his social as well as academic life was affected by this.

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St. Louis attorney Zane T. Cagle draws upon his experience as a Missouri native to fully understand and relate to each accident client he assists. Zane seeks to know his clients individually and to understand how their injuries have changed their lives.

Zane grew up in a small, rural Missouri community where he was active in athletics and agricultural science organizations.

At the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri, he earned a safety management degree; he later obtained a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Zane’s professional success and leadership as an injury attorney earned him nationwide recognition as a member of The National Trial Lawyers Association: Top 40 under 40.

Zane has begun to lay the foundation for a new non-profit organization to promote literacy among all children, especially in rural areas such as the area in which he grew up. As a community leader, Zane feels it is a responsibility and a privilege to be involved in the community and contribute to the learning successes of all young people.

Tap here for more information.

Cagle attributes the increasing popularity of the internet with helping him overcome his reading difficulties, as he began to read and comprehend well when he was able to read online.

“We all talk about how we want to make a difference, how we want to change things. But very few of us do anything about it,” Cagle said. “So we thought: what’s something we can do that’s near and something important to us, and a struggle that I would understand. So we came up with the nonprofit.” Cagle believes that the nonprofit will be a win-win situation, for the community and for his firm. “Obviously we’re doing some good and that’s the primary objective, but it’s got marketing implications for us as well, in that it gets our name out there, and our name is associated with a positive thing.”

Cagle explained that there is a negative image associated with lawyers, particularly personal injury lawyers.

“People think that plaintiff attorneys and trial lawyers are trying to take, take, take, and [that] they want to kill businesses and everything else, and that’s not the truth. The problem is that, as trial attorneys, we’ve been very bad at getting out our message. We haven’t shown the people the good things that we do.” He also stressed that, as the age-old adage goes, it’s more important to show, not tell. The general public is constantly bombarded with advertisements, commercials, and information about firms. So, to stand out from the crowd, it is important for firms to show their community involvement. “If you really want to do something different, if you really want to do something good, show them the good that you’re doing.”

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Cagle recognized the importance of letting his firm’s community actions speak for themselves, and that was also another reason why they chose rural literacy for their non-profit’s focus— it was something that people can see, a program that would be very visible in their communities. While the program will help children in rural communities learn to read and interact with technologies they might not otherwise have access to, Cagle’s firm hopes to use it to their advantage as well. Establishing that connection with communities in the area “builds credibility and establishes that we do care about kids, we do care about communities. And for that reason, we’re not going to just sit there and say it. We’re going to show people that we do care, that we’re willing to make a difference. And, if all of us did that, we’d have a much better world.”

While Cagle Rural Reading acts as a marketing project for Cagle’s firm, the primary objective is still to improve literary in rural areas.

Cagle explains that he hopes to help other young people, just as he was helped himself.

“As successful as I’ve been, as fortunate as I’ve been, it’s not because of the things I’ve done. A lot of people have helped me a long the way, and they’ve really made the difference for me. I’ve had some great teachers, and great mentors, and my family, and those people have helped me along the whole way. I could never have been successful without those people. If I get a chance to give back and help someone else be successful because of that, then that would be a great thing. At the end of the day, hopefully it helps out my business as well.”

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

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Volume 2 | Issue 2

Articles & Content A Multiple Website Strategy For Trial Lawyers

How Much Information Do You Have?

Why Ignoring Your Online Reputation Can Be Harmful

Going Mobile with “GoMo”

Reputation Reps

A Multiple Website Strategy For Trial Lawyers

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he competition for new cases is intense. Yellow Pages don’t work. TV works, but competition makes it extremely expensive.

Social media is booming, but are there cases there?

Your clients are online, but whether you are targeting mesothelioma, medical malpractice, defective products, or motor vehicle accidents, the competition for the top spot on the Google search results is intense.

While we work with our clients on a wide range of online marketing strategies, our data continues to show that search – especially on Google – drives leads and cases to our attorneys’ practices.

So how can you get an edge?

One answer is a Multiple Website Strategy using “Exact Match Domains” (“EMDs”).

Multiple websites give you more opportunities to capture that prospective client.

Imagine that your website marketing campaign is a shopping mall: your main website is the anchor – Macy’s or Nordstrom. Your niche websites (practice-specific or location-specific) are the little stores inside the mall. From your perspective, you don’t care whether a prospective client purchases a product from the anchor store or one of the smaller stores if you own them all.

Your Primary Website.

Before you worry about multiple websites, make sure your foundation – your law firm’s primary website - is solid. That means strong content (useful information for consumers with potential claims) with separate pages covering each type of case you handle. The law firms that really focus on this will come out ahead. SEO also requires links from relevant and credible websites as well as mentions and links from social media.

Finally, your main website must have strong conversion elements to ensure that when you do drive a prospective client to your website, he or she actually picks up the phone and calls you, submits an online inquiry through a contact form, or engages in an online chat.

After all, the whole point is to generate leads that turn into cases.

So, let’s assume that you have all that, but you know you should be doing better. You know you should be generating more leads and cases. You should consider a multiple website marketing strategy.

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Multiple Websites

Niche websites include both practice-specific websites as well as location-specific websites. The typical strategy is a hub-and-spoke approach with the main website being the hub and niche websites as the satellites. This strategy has allowed our clients to dominate the search results in two ways.

• First, when your primary website already ranks high in the search results, your satellite websites can fill additional slots. This will push some of your competitors off the first page.

• Second, even when your primary website does well on the search engines, there will be gaps – keyword searches where your primary website does not rank. In that situation, a well optimized niche website can ensure that you don’t miss out on leads for specific types of cases.

In some cases, a niche website can generate even better results for specific cases than your main site. Search engines see that they are focused on a single type of case, making them easier to index. Consumers are more likely to perceive that you have the specific expertise that they need, making them more likely to retain your services.

Exact Match Domain Websites

My favorite strategy for niche websites involves using “Exact Match Domains” (“EMDs”) and “Exact Match Subdomains” (“EMSs”) – especially “Natural Order Exact Match Domains” (“NOEMDs”).

An example of a NOEMD is www.OrlandoBrainInjuryAttorney.com. Do the search, you will see that it ranks.

An example of an EMS is CincinnatiCarAccident.Attorneys.us. Do the search. This ranks too. In fact, many Attorneys.us Natural Order Subdomain Websites have been able to rank for their target search phrases. You can learn more about this opportunity here http://attorneys.us/attorneys-websites/.

In September, Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted that Google was updating its algorithm to devalue “low quality” EMDs. Google did just that, and many low quality EMDs immediately dropped in the rankings. But that is not the end of the story.

While many SEO pundits praised the decision as a blow to black hat SEO techniques, Google’s algorithm update had virtually no impact on high quality EMDs – including NOEMDS – with strong content.

The Bottom Line

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Websites that use EMDs, especially those that use NOEMDs, can still rank at the top of the search results for their target search phrases, provided that you devote the time and effort to develop meaningful, useful, and informative content for your target consumers.

Dan Goldstein is the President and owner of Page 1 Solutions, LLC, an Internet marketing company specializing in website development and search engine marketing for attorneys and doctors. He has written numerous articles and given many presentations on Internet marketing for professionals. Dan is a practicing attorney. Prior to founding Page1, Dan served as Vice President and General Counsel of Page 1’s parent Company – Network Affiliates, Inc.

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

Article Written By:

DAN GOLDSTEIN

PAGE 1 SOLUTIONS, LLC President Volume 2 | Issue 2

How Much Information Do You Have?

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our firm is on the right track. You’ve implemented a marketing and public relations campaign. You’re spending the money to brand your firm and get referrals. Your website is optimized, appealing, and generating traffic. Now what?

Many firms neglect to consider the crucial next step: tracking the success of those costly efforts. You may think of practice management software as a way to manage cases, improve workflow, and track the status of your cases, but, implemented properly, it can be so much more valuable. It can become the ultimate measurement of your marketing efforts!

I’m going to talk to you today about your firm’s practice management system, and how the information contained within can become a powerful tool for marketing, client retention, and a source of new cases. Legal practice management software is so much more than just a database. It’s a goldmine of historical information about your firm, your staff, your clients, and your cases.

When information is entered properly and consistently, it’s all a matter of reporting on and analyzing the data you already have at your fingertips.

Let’s start with how you enter data into your system. All of the other steps we are going to cover begin with proper data entry, so that reliable and accurate information can be pulled out. Consider the information you gather from potential clients. Intakes are the lifeblood of your practice. In today’s firms, the process of gathering information for client intakes comes from many different sources: ad campaigns, call centers, referrals from other law firms, and, of course, directly from clients. Processing the information from all of these sources can be completely seamless using a case management system that allows for custom intake screens and an import/export process.

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A custom script at the fingertips of your intake staff can help to avoid mistakes or holes in data. Being able to report on information from your intake data allows you to assess things like what time of day your intakes are arriving and how that corresponds to television or radio spots, how many of them are being converted into clients, which intake staff is converting the most cases, and more. The more accurate and comprehensive this data is, the more you can accomplish with it.

So letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talk about how this data will affect your firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s marketing efforts.

One of the most important aspects of successful marketing is ensuring that your campaigns are meeting the right demographic. Do you know the demographic data on your clients, or are you making assumptions without truly analyzing the information you have at hand?

If you could push a button and know which geographic areas are producing the most lucrative cases for your firm, you could in turn increase the marketing spend on billboards in that area, or plan a public relations campaign for residents in those neighborhoods. Even better, if you track your intakes closely, you can see what types of clients/cases are generating the best results for your firm. After reviewing your data, look at your marketing campaigns and ask if those efforts are targeting the most productive potential clients in the most successful geographic areas for your firm. If not, you now have enough information to adjust those market efforts to bear more fruit.

Properly implemented practice management software by a staff regularly entering information also gives you invaluable data regarding referral sources.

It allows you to identify the sources of your best clients. Just as important, it also allows you to weed out the sources of the intakes that do not turn into cases for your firm and waste your valuable time. You can identify where to place additional marketing dollars and where to cut back, which relationships to strengthen and which ones to move on from.

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Finally, many firms miss one of the largest potential sources of new cases: current clients! With a good software package and a well maintained database, you can pinpoint where your clients come from, keep them on regular mailing lists to keep in touch and top of mind, conduct and track client satisfaction surveys, and track important details about your clients and their families. Something as simple as a check-in email or a birthday card to a client can make a world of difference, and with the right software, these things are easy to do. When clients feel that you truly know and care about them, they are likely to be your very best advertisement.

But this isn’t just about referrals from satisfied customers. Because practice management software is a database of information, you are also able to mine your own data and identify clients who may be ripe for another case type your firm handles. If your firm offers multiple services in a variety of case types, it just makes sense to make sure you are offering all those services to a client that could benefit from them. What could be better than finding a new case with someone who is already a client with your firm?

Knowledge is power, and a database of information means you can place marketing dollars for maximum impact, target those geographic areas producing the best clients, identify which referral sources consistently perform, maintain a closer relationship with your clients, make sure your customers are fully benefiting from all your firm has to offer, and so much more. So the question is: how much information do you have?

Bryan Billig is President of Needles, Inc., the company that created Needles, the customizable practice management software for law firms. An admitted “technology geek,” Bryan regularly speaks at legal industry tradeshows on ways to use technology to improve workflow. For more information, visit www.needles.com

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

X Article Written By:

BRYAN BILLIG Needles, Inc. President

Volume 2 | Issue 2

Why Ignoring Your Online Reputation Can Be Harmful

In mid- 2012, Google made major changes that overnight affected 80 million local businesses worldwide. Four major “game changers” for local businesses have occurred as a result of these changes.

Before I review the “game changers,” let me ask you a question.

Would you buy a product or service from a business that has bad ratings or reviews? Of course not, because no one wants to have that same bad experience when they buy a product or service. And what others say about you is always more important than what you say about yourself.

The 4 Game Changers

First, if you go to Google, type in any business name & city, you’ll now see the online reputation of that business: Google, Yelp, Insider Pages, etc. show good and bad reviews that clients have written. And you can’t hide bad or negative reviews; they’re out there in front of everybody.

Second, client reviews are becoming a major factor in almost every type of online marketing; they’re beginning to show up in Google+ Local, pay per click, website rankings, and more. And it’s only going to increase – remember, these changes were first implemented only several months ago.

Third, traditional local online marketing (e.g., Google+ Local, SEO, pay per click, etc.) doesn’t work anymore if you have bad reviews online.

In just the past several months, we’ve experienced a 180 degree turn in our approach. Today you first have to create a solid 5-star local online reputation, and second, you must optimize local online presence in the traditional ways.

Would you agree that it does no good to be well positioned in Google if, when your prospective clients find you, they see bad reviews about you? That’s a potential phone call that’s not going to happen.

Fourth and lastly, good reviews send prequalified, presold clients to you because all the available research shows that buyers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

An Approach To Local Reputation Marketing

To address these 4 major game changers, you need a strategy and system for developing and executing your Local Online Reputation Marketing (not Reputation Management), which we define as positioning yourself as the market leader with a 5 star reputation in front of your potential clients.

It starts with determining your Local Online Reputation (software is available which shows any negative reviews and additional factors). Then, you need to address a four-part, ongoing Reputation Marketing strategy:

1. Develop your 5-star online reputation

2. Market your 5-star online reputation

3. Manage your 5-star online reputation

4. Develop a reputation marketing culture within your practice.

Only after you have a handle on your 5-star online reputation should you address your local online presence.

Your Local Online Presence

The answer to maximizing your Local Online Presence in most cases comes down to one thing: Google+ Local.

Previously called Google Places, Google+ Local also was affected by Google’s major changes in mid-2012. In fact, Google didn’t stop with its first change; they incorporated at least 38 additional updates over the next four months.

If you were attempting to stay current on your own, you were challenged almost beyond belief. I say that with knowledge from personal experience, as we were having a difficult time staying on top of the updates, and this is the major focus of our business.

The bottom line is this: you’ve got to have a good Google+ Local position for prospects to see your 5-star reputation.

Here’s the four-step process you need to master to achieve a top Google+ Local position:

1. Develop a well optimized Google+ Local page

2. Get plenty of written and video reviews (client testimonials) posted to your

Google+ Local page along with a number of other “authority” review websites.

3. Develop a large list of Citation Listings – There are literally hundreds of websites

that will show your business citation (business name, address, and phone number).

4. Optimize your business website ranking – this is the arena of traditional search

engine optimization.

Taking An Integrated Approach

I hope that the discussion above has shown you several things:

1. When you have a 5-star local online reputation, your client prospects will call you when they find you (over your competition).

2. When you have a good local online presence, your client prospects will find you when they’re searching for your solution.

3. Taking an integrated approach towards local online reputation marketing and online presence should give you the confidence that you’ll have at least a 9 to 12 month edge on your competition.

Jon Keel has developed a reputation as an online marketing expert, having been in this arena since January 1997. In addition to being CEO of Improved Results, LLC, which he founded in September 1997, he co-developed the Xavier University MBA E-Business program, where he taught Online Marketing and E-Commerce.

He co-developed the first PPC bid management software and wrote the first book on PPC search engines, “Instant Web Site Traffic.” He has also contributed to several bestselling books, including “Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars” and “Secrets of Peak Performers.”

X Article Written By:

JON KEEL

Improved Results, LLC CEO

His business for the last 4 years has focused on providing Reputation Marketing and Online Presence management for local businesses.

To learn more visit: www.ImprovedResults.com

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

Volume 2 | Issue 2

Going Mobile: The Importance of Having a Mobile-Friendly Website Generation Smartphone.

It’s no secret that mobile phones have quickly become a staple for the American consumer. iPhones, Droids, and Blackberries now occupy pocket and purse space as frequently as wallets and car keys. In recent years, smartphones have completely revolutionized the portable phone industry. Billed as portable, handheld computers and essentially traveling with their owners everywhere, they present a veritable new frontier for consumers and producers alike. Marketers view the smartphone arena as a goldlined treasure chest. But, if catered to incorrectly, or ignored entirely, they can become a business’s worst enemy.

Websites were designed before the advent of smartphones. Therefore, they are visually optimized to look best on a desktop or laptop computer screen. Unfortunately, when accessed from a smartphone, the results can be less than impressive. Enter “GoMo” or “Go Mobile,” a new Google initiative aimed at helping businesses to create mobile friendly websites.

Why You Should Care.

According to 2010 Gartner research, by 2013, more people will use their mobile phones than PCs to get online. Likewise, 2011 Cisco research estimates that there will be at least one mobile device per person on the planet by 2015.

In fact, research done by Google itself in 2012 found that “users expect their mobile experience to be just as good as their desktop experience.”

What’s more, not only have consumer expectations risen, the absence of a mobile-friendly website can also cost you customers and business. Google’s research studies found that 67% of respondents said that “a mobilefriendly site makes me more likely to buy a product or use a service, while 61% indicated that “if I don’t see what I’m looking for right away on a mobile site, I’ll quickly move on to another site.”

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Go Mobile Tools.

GoMo features a wide variety of tools that allow businesses to do everything from assess their current website situation to create a new, fully optimized mobile version of their website.

A research section highlights the importance of having a website optimized for mobile phones. They also offer a list of mobile site “best practices,” which range from simplifying navigation to making sure that your site is “thumb-friendly.”

The “GoMoMeter” allows you to plug in your website’s URL and it “shows you how your current site looks on a smartphone, and provides a free report with personalized recommendations tailored to how your business can build a more mobilefriendly experience.”

The Go Mobile website includes stepby-step guides for creating your own mobile-friendly website. Or, if you aren’t the most technologically adept individual, the site also offers a way to connect with web developers who can assist you. Furthermore, because Go Mobile is still in its infancy and trying to build an audience, they are offering a year of premium service for your site for free.

The Bottom Line.

Smartphones are quickly becoming ubiquitous in our modern world. And with consumer expectation rising, the only logical step is for producers to respond to this new trend. GoMo, from Google, is a simple yet effective way for businesses to adapt to a mobile environment by making sure that their sites are mobile-friendly.

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Law Firm Marketing Magazine

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Jaw-Dropping Mobile Website Statistics 1. By 2015 there will be one mobile device for every person in the world.

2. In 2013, more people will use a mobile device to get online than use PC’s.

3. A staggering 50% of local searches are performed on mobile devices.

4. 61% of mobile users who find your business while searching online end up calling the business.

5. 59% of those users end up stopping into the business.

6. 50% of the mobile users who found your business online end up converting into a purchasing customer.

7. If a mobile user is not happy with your mobile website, there is a 40% chance they will go visit a competitors.

8. If a mobile user has a poor experience on your mobile website, they are 57% more unlikely to recommend your business to other mobile users.

9. It’s projected that in 2013, tablet devices will make up nearly 21% of the mobile market.

10. 60% of mobile users expect your mobile website to load in under 3 seconds.

Statistics for this article were gathered from forrester.com, IDC.com, SavvyPanda.com and howtogomo.com

Volume 2 | Issue 2

Reputation Reps

Word-of-mouth has been a tried and true method of communication and recommendation for as long as humans have communicated with one another. Early homo sapiens probably advised their peers on which animals were easier to hunt or which berries were safe to eat. We trust those around us to give us their opinions on the best cardiologist, the best summer blockbuster, or the best sushi place in town. The fact is, a large part of an individual’s decision-making is based in someone else’s personal experiences, and subsequent recommendations. That’s why reviews are so important.

Reviews, in the format that we understand, have also been around for a while. Ratings and reviews have been printed, broadcasted, and distributed for decades. Now they have moved to the Internet.

According to NBC, consumers rely more than ever on online reviews. “It’s no surprise that these reviews are also directly impacting businesses’ bottom line,” says Chris Campbell.

Some think that reviews are simply out of their control, but that is not the case.

There are quite a few areas over which business owners have control. In the Speaker Media Reputation Reps program, a team exerts that control on your behalf and helps establish a solid online review presence for your business.

The concept of getting online reviews for your firm is tricky for several reasons.

First, it’s a huge obstacle to try to get your personal injury clients to both set up an online account and submit a review on any of the numerous review sites. Second, getting those reviews visible and working positively for your firm can be a daunting task.

With the reputation representatives program, the main goal is to have your client set up an online account and post directly. But for firms that are finding that challenging, SMRR can help take those authentic client reviews and get them posted online in an honest and ethical way.

The key is to start with a baseline analysis. The first step in getting serious about your online reputation is to get a basic idea of what is currently going on in your reviews.

SMRR works with you to claim and optimize your online review sites. It’s important to note that you must claim the site yourself—a third party cannot claim review sites for you.

Also crucial is the knowledge that, if a listing is left unclaimed, it can be more difficult for reviews to post, or to remain posted for extended periods of time.

Everyone knows Google, and it would seem like Google knows everybody as well, so most firms want their reviews to be listed on a Google-affiliated site. However, since the recent implementation of changes to Google’s programming, it’s become more difficult to get new reviews posted to Google sites. A legitimate, active account is required, and oftentimes the account must be “aged.”

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There are two main avenues through which SMRR helps to manage your online reputation. First is the construction of an online reviews page. This can be built into your own website, or established on a separate landing page. Essentially, this page allows clients to sit down and submit a review as simply and effectively as possible. There is no account setup, and the only required information is name, e-mail address, gender, how many stars they’d rank the firm at, and comments. Using unique algorithms, after the review is submitted, SMRR can redirect those who gave positive reviews to a page asking them to visit a third-party site and submit a review there as well. To combat the issue of account setup and “aged” accounts, here you can offer options of review sites on which people already have accounts, such as Yahoo! and Gmail.

The second way in which SMRR helps to manage your online reputation is through the targeted organization of reviews from other sources (for example, customer satisfaction surveys or comment cards). On this end, SMRR takes legitimate comments from clients and optimizes them. Each review is checked for spelling and grammar and properly formatted.

Reviews can be organized by zip code for specific targeting, as well as by gender, or other helpful demographic data. Then selected reviews are assigned to different online review sites such as Yelp! and InsiderPages.

Clearly, it’s important to recognize that the world of online reviews should not be ignored. Your potential clients are looking at them, so you should too. And it’s imperative that you take those first steps towards taking control of your online reputation and using it to your firm’s greatest benefit.

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Tap here for more information or to schedule a FREE consultation!

Watch Cindy Speaker’s webinar about the new Reputation Reps program.

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

Volume 2 | Issue 2

You Say You Want A Resolution...

What Are Pixels?

Computer-based graphics are comprised of thousands of tiny squares of color called pixels. These are the small dots you see if you put your face too close to your television or computer screen. Every digital image is comprised of thousands or millions of individual pixels, each with their own color. When these groups of pixels are viewed as a whole, we see the entire image, much like they way mosaics are made.

What Is Resolution?

Resolution is simply the number of pixels that are displayed per inch of an image (PPI or pixels per inch). Nearly all monitors display at a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. If an image is 72 pixels wide, then it will display as one square inch on a monitor that is set to a resolution of 72 pixels per inch.

Graphics for print and graphics for display on computer monitors use different resolutions. While monitors are constrained by a limitation of 72 pixels per inch, virtually all printers currently print in the range of 300 dpi (dots per inch). Unlike computer graphics, with images for print, a higher resolution will yield a higher quality image. Therefore, if you intend to print an image, you want to use a higher resolution than you would for a web graphic. This doesn’t mean a larger image; it simply means an image with more pixels per inch.

What Are File Extensions?

There are many different file types associated with graphics, however only a few types are suitable for web use.

Those are the ones we will focus on.

The most widely supported web image formats are jpeg, gif, and PNG. JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) – The jpeg image format allows up to 16 million colors and is the best choice for images with many colors or gradients. However, jpeg is a “lossy” format, which means that each time the image is saved it gets compressed and loses some quality. Jpeg images allow for various levels of compression. Low compression means high image quality, but large file size. High compression means lower image quality, but smaller file size.

GIF (Graphic Information Format) – Gif is a “lossless” image format. This means that the quality of the image is not degraded through compression.

The limitation of gif images is that the color palette includes only 256 colors. Therefore, the gif format is a good choice for simpler graphics with a smaller number of solid colors. The gif format also allows for transparent backgrounds, which allows the background color of the web page to show behind the graphic.

PNG (Progressive Network Graphics) – PNG is a newer image format that provides a combination of many features from both jpeg and gif. The PNG format allows for the use of millions of colors as well as providing the ability to have transparent backgrounds. The one drawback to the PNG format is that not all web browsers, especially older browsers, support the format.

Who Cares?

You may be wondering how this applies to you. While you may not deal with resolution and file types on a daily basis, it is still important to have a general knowledge of the subject.

Trust me, your web guys and your print people will thank you for it!

X Article Written By:

JAY KUNKEL

Speaker Media and Marketing COO

Can you see the difference between these three images?

Law Firm Marketing Magazine

Volume 2 | Issue 2

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