Many law firms and attorneys remain reluctant to implement modern marketing strategies into their firms’ growth plans due to stringent professional confidentiality and ethical restrictions, with a considerable percentage even going so far as to label legal advertising as “taboo” or an “ethical grey area.”
But as the legal market saturated and clients began searching out prospective attorneys online before engaging them, consensus towards legal advertising shifted. However, the transition was not without several costly lessons along the way, with many firms opting to place advertisements in local Yellow Pages and gamble with expensive Google Ads campaigns. Attorneys and law firms recognised that a more effective and feasible marketing strategy was needed to stay competitive in today’s highly technological and digitised legal market - content marketing.
Establishing a smooth-running content marketing game-plan is no small undertaking for law firms, especially when utilising various actors, such as SEO specialists, content marketers, editors, designers, freelance writers and other marketing experts. With countless moving parts in the content marketing process, law firms need a comprehensive platform to manage the above actors and streamline their content production - GatherContent.
Here are five reasons why GatherContent is a great fit for law firms that want to streamline their content marketing and production processes.
1. GatherContent enables seamless collaboration between attorneys & marketers
A law firm’s structure can be highly fragmented in the way that attorneys will primarily focus their efforts providing legal services to clients (of course), while rarely having contact with other departments, such as marketing or PR. Complicating a cohesive marketing strategy even further is that law firms may have offices spread across the globe and thousands of attorneys and other employees, with several large firms having upwards of 2,000 attorneys.
Content collaboration and coordination between multiple attorneys, marketers, writers, editors, and other actors across different time zones is no easy feat.
Furthermore, the average attorney hourly rate can range anywhere from USD $100 to $200 in small towns, and $200 to $400 in larger cities, so every minute of the content process that is streamlined could potentially save a law firm large sums in the long-run.
GatherContent enables law firms to eliminate unnecessary back and forth, document sharing, and emails between the marketing department, content production and attorneys, ensuring that time is properly utilised for providing legal services to clients and content is rolling out in an efficient manner.
2. It ensures multiple review checks on an article before publishing
When publishing legal content online, it is critical that attorneys not only provide accurate and up-to-date information but write in an authoritative manner when doing so. Readers and potential clients may land on a law firm’s legal resource center and blog while in a vulnerable state, unsure of their rights and seeking guidance on how to proceed next. Failing to deliver accurate and up-to-date information to readers could have severe effects for some, leading to:
Misunderstanding their rights,
Missing important deadlines, or even
Taking improper legal action.
Should a law firm strike too casual of a tone in writing or message, they risk leading readers to believe that their legal issue might not be taken seriously.
For example, the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 7.2 prohibits attorneys from implying or stating that they are a certified specialist in a particular area of law unless they are actually certified by an appropriate governing organisation. Newly on-boarded marketers and writers may not have a legal background or familiarity with the ABA’s governing rules. Accidentally using the term “specialist” in a firm’s blog post or service page could ultimately open up a law firm to legal liability or disciplinary action by the ABA.
The importance of legal content having proper case citations, using professional language, and not availing one’s firm to legal liability with “loose language” is paramount. GatherContent’s “Content Templates” enable those at the content production helm to establish guidelines at the top of each article, landing page, or document, so that sloppy and loose language, incorrect case citations, and variable writing styles are reined in before a piece of content is published.
What is more, GatherContent allows multiple sets of eyes to easily review and sign off on an article before publishing, ensuring no egregious errors in content slip through the cracks and misinform readers.
3. Prevents duplicate content from being published
For law firms that have produced a large corpus of blog content over the years (or are planning to), it is crucial to ensure that duplicate content is not reproduced. Besides wasting valuable time, duplicate content can have disastrous effects on a law firm’s keyword rankings (and SEO) in Google’s search results, as Google’s content “crawler” does not know:
Which version of the content to index or exclude from their indices,
Whether to direct link metrics (such as authority, link equity, and trust) to a single page or distribute it amongst multiple versions,
Which version(s) to rank in their search results.
For law firms that heavily rely on content marketing and organic traffic as their primary channel to attract, funnel, and convert clients, reproducing and publishing duplicate content could cause a drastic drop in website traffic and converting clients.
GatherContent’s “Project Overview” allows writers and attorneys to easily visualise and search for content that has already been created (or is in the pipeline). To locate already produced and published content, GatherContent users can simply search “All Items” in the “Content” tab or input targeted topic keywords into the search icon in the upper right hand corner. This prevents exhausting research, resources, and time in building out an outline for an article or page that has already been created.
4. Ability to pinpoint bottlenecks & issues in content production
To streamline a content production process, bottlenecks and critical issues hindering content publication need to be easily identifiable and fixable. Failing to adapt to and remedy inevitable bottlenecks in one’s content marketing process can exhaust both precious time and resources.
GatherContent enables law firms and marketers to customise their content production workflow in a highly granular way, so that issues and bottlenecks may be identified and refined as they appear. Users may customise workflow colour codes, create checklists, and establish asset fields to track every single step of the publishing process.
We at Minc Law currently employ a 17-step content workflow process that explicitly outlines each step for each workflow stage - from ideation to publication. Each workflow stage supports its own set of guidelines, checklists, and asset fields to define exactly what needs to be accomplished at each stage. Should a writer or attorney fail to tick the appropriate box in a requisite content checklist, or an asset field remains blank, this is easily reviewable and fixable.
SME = Subject Matter Expert, DCM = Digital Content Manager
For example, we experienced several major bottlenecks at the tail-end of our publishing process, where writers did not include a sufficient amount of educational external links for readers or interlink to our already published educational content. After reviewing GatherContent’s “Overview” of project statuses, we identified that a staggering number of articles were being “sent back” to a prior workflow stage by our technical SEO team due to a failure to adhere to best linking practices. Once identified, internal and external linking checklists were then added to early stages of the content production and review process.
5. Highly scalable & easy to on-board new users
Not all law firms possess an in-house marketing or content creation team. In fact, freelance legal platforms such as UpCounsel have seen a stark increase in freelance attorneys and writers joining their platforms in the past five years. Utilising freelance attorneys and writers is an effective way for a law firm to first test out their new content marketing strategy or satisfy their marketing needs without employing a full-time employee. However, employing freelance attorneys and writers is not always a straightforward process, as it can take some trial and error before you find the right fit for your law firm.
GatherContent enables law firms to establish clear checklists, blueprints, and sets guidelines atop every workflow stage and document to on-board new independent contractors, attorneys, SEO specialists, writers, and subject matter experts. Law firm marketing and content production teams can create and bundle easily digestible and reviewable on-boarding packages for new members and users, so new users know exactly what is required from them when creating content.
Stay competitive with an effective content marketing game-plan
In today’s digital landscape where clients and consumers typically seek out legal services on the internet before engaging, it is critical to ensure that your law firm puts its best foot forward with the information that is broadcasted. That first starts with a streamlined and effective content marketing infrastructure.
GatherContent is an all-in-one content creation platform that allows easy collaboration, communication, and review of content from its inception to publication, to ensure that your law firm is efficiently using its time and resources to produce content and that your message is communicated in a professional and effective manner.
Streamline your content production with GatherContent
Many law firms and attorneys remain reluctant to implement modern marketing strategies into their firms’ growth plans due to stringent professional confidentiality and ethical restrictions, with a considerable percentage even going so far as to label legal advertising as “taboo” or an “ethical grey area.”
But as the legal market saturated and clients began searching out prospective attorneys online before engaging them, consensus towards legal advertising shifted. However, the transition was not without several costly lessons along the way, with many firms opting to place advertisements in local Yellow Pages and gamble with expensive Google Ads campaigns. Attorneys and law firms recognised that a more effective and feasible marketing strategy was needed to stay competitive in today’s highly technological and digitised legal market - content marketing.
Establishing a smooth-running content marketing game-plan is no small undertaking for law firms, especially when utilising various actors, such as SEO specialists, content marketers, editors, designers, freelance writers and other marketing experts. With countless moving parts in the content marketing process, law firms need a comprehensive platform to manage the above actors and streamline their content production - GatherContent.
Here are five reasons why GatherContent is a great fit for law firms that want to streamline their content marketing and production processes.
1. GatherContent enables seamless collaboration between attorneys & marketers
A law firm’s structure can be highly fragmented in the way that attorneys will primarily focus their efforts providing legal services to clients (of course), while rarely having contact with other departments, such as marketing or PR. Complicating a cohesive marketing strategy even further is that law firms may have offices spread across the globe and thousands of attorneys and other employees, with several large firms having upwards of 2,000 attorneys.
Content collaboration and coordination between multiple attorneys, marketers, writers, editors, and other actors across different time zones is no easy feat.
Furthermore, the average attorney hourly rate can range anywhere from USD $100 to $200 in small towns, and $200 to $400 in larger cities, so every minute of the content process that is streamlined could potentially save a law firm large sums in the long-run.
GatherContent enables law firms to eliminate unnecessary back and forth, document sharing, and emails between the marketing department, content production and attorneys, ensuring that time is properly utilised for providing legal services to clients and content is rolling out in an efficient manner.
2. It ensures multiple review checks on an article before publishing
When publishing legal content online, it is critical that attorneys not only provide accurate and up-to-date information but write in an authoritative manner when doing so. Readers and potential clients may land on a law firm’s legal resource center and blog while in a vulnerable state, unsure of their rights and seeking guidance on how to proceed next. Failing to deliver accurate and up-to-date information to readers could have severe effects for some, leading to:
Misunderstanding their rights,
Missing important deadlines, or even
Taking improper legal action.
Should a law firm strike too casual of a tone in writing or message, they risk leading readers to believe that their legal issue might not be taken seriously.
For example, the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 7.2 prohibits attorneys from implying or stating that they are a certified specialist in a particular area of law unless they are actually certified by an appropriate governing organisation. Newly on-boarded marketers and writers may not have a legal background or familiarity with the ABA’s governing rules. Accidentally using the term “specialist” in a firm’s blog post or service page could ultimately open up a law firm to legal liability or disciplinary action by the ABA.
The importance of legal content having proper case citations, using professional language, and not availing one’s firm to legal liability with “loose language” is paramount. GatherContent’s “Content Templates” enable those at the content production helm to establish guidelines at the top of each article, landing page, or document, so that sloppy and loose language, incorrect case citations, and variable writing styles are reined in before a piece of content is published.
What is more, GatherContent allows multiple sets of eyes to easily review and sign off on an article before publishing, ensuring no egregious errors in content slip through the cracks and misinform readers.
3. Prevents duplicate content from being published
For law firms that have produced a large corpus of blog content over the years (or are planning to), it is crucial to ensure that duplicate content is not reproduced. Besides wasting valuable time, duplicate content can have disastrous effects on a law firm’s keyword rankings (and SEO) in Google’s search results, as Google’s content “crawler” does not know:
Which version of the content to index or exclude from their indices,
Whether to direct link metrics (such as authority, link equity, and trust) to a single page or distribute it amongst multiple versions,
Which version(s) to rank in their search results.
For law firms that heavily rely on content marketing and organic traffic as their primary channel to attract, funnel, and convert clients, reproducing and publishing duplicate content could cause a drastic drop in website traffic and converting clients.
GatherContent’s “Project Overview” allows writers and attorneys to easily visualise and search for content that has already been created (or is in the pipeline). To locate already produced and published content, GatherContent users can simply search “All Items” in the “Content” tab or input targeted topic keywords into the search icon in the upper right hand corner. This prevents exhausting research, resources, and time in building out an outline for an article or page that has already been created.
4. Ability to pinpoint bottlenecks & issues in content production
To streamline a content production process, bottlenecks and critical issues hindering content publication need to be easily identifiable and fixable. Failing to adapt to and remedy inevitable bottlenecks in one’s content marketing process can exhaust both precious time and resources.
GatherContent enables law firms and marketers to customise their content production workflow in a highly granular way, so that issues and bottlenecks may be identified and refined as they appear. Users may customise workflow colour codes, create checklists, and establish asset fields to track every single step of the publishing process.
We at Minc Law currently employ a 17-step content workflow process that explicitly outlines each step for each workflow stage - from ideation to publication. Each workflow stage supports its own set of guidelines, checklists, and asset fields to define exactly what needs to be accomplished at each stage. Should a writer or attorney fail to tick the appropriate box in a requisite content checklist, or an asset field remains blank, this is easily reviewable and fixable.
SME = Subject Matter Expert, DCM = Digital Content Manager
For example, we experienced several major bottlenecks at the tail-end of our publishing process, where writers did not include a sufficient amount of educational external links for readers or interlink to our already published educational content. After reviewing GatherContent’s “Overview” of project statuses, we identified that a staggering number of articles were being “sent back” to a prior workflow stage by our technical SEO team due to a failure to adhere to best linking practices. Once identified, internal and external linking checklists were then added to early stages of the content production and review process.
5. Highly scalable & easy to on-board new users
Not all law firms possess an in-house marketing or content creation team. In fact, freelance legal platforms such as UpCounsel have seen a stark increase in freelance attorneys and writers joining their platforms in the past five years. Utilising freelance attorneys and writers is an effective way for a law firm to first test out their new content marketing strategy or satisfy their marketing needs without employing a full-time employee. However, employing freelance attorneys and writers is not always a straightforward process, as it can take some trial and error before you find the right fit for your law firm.
GatherContent enables law firms to establish clear checklists, blueprints, and sets guidelines atop every workflow stage and document to on-board new independent contractors, attorneys, SEO specialists, writers, and subject matter experts. Law firm marketing and content production teams can create and bundle easily digestible and reviewable on-boarding packages for new members and users, so new users know exactly what is required from them when creating content.
Stay competitive with an effective content marketing game-plan
In today’s digital landscape where clients and consumers typically seek out legal services on the internet before engaging, it is critical to ensure that your law firm puts its best foot forward with the information that is broadcasted. That first starts with a streamlined and effective content marketing infrastructure.
GatherContent is an all-in-one content creation platform that allows easy collaboration, communication, and review of content from its inception to publication, to ensure that your law firm is efficiently using its time and resources to produce content and that your message is communicated in a professional and effective manner.
Streamline your content production with GatherContent
Aaron Minc is the founder of Cleveland, Ohio-based internet defamation law firm Minc Law and nationally recognised leader in the specialised fields of internet defamation, internet extortion, revenge porn, and content removal. His work is on the technological forefront of removing damaging content from the Internet, combating defamatory cyberattacks, and uncovering identities of anonymous internet users. In Aaron’s tenure as a leading internet defamation attorney, he has successfully litigated more than 100 Internet defamation lawsuits in 19 states and 3 countries, and removed more than 10,000 websites, search results and other pieces of false or damaging content from the Internet. He is also frequently called upon by numerous news media publications to comment and speak on topics involving online defamation and internet privacy.
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