Marketing Is Messaging, Express Yourself

Episode Notes

Transcript

[Music]

Managing your law practice can be challenging.  Marketing, time management, attracting clients, and all the things besides the cases that you need to do that aren’t billable.  Welcome to this edition of The Unbillable Hour, the law practice advisory podcast.  This is where you’ll get the information you need from expert guests and host, Christopher Anderson, here on Legal Talk Network.

Christopher T. Anderson: Welcome to the Un-Billable Hour.  I am your host, Christopher Anderson.  And today’s episode is about marketing.  Yay!  I can hear the cheers from here, like we usually have a sales or marketing episode pretty often.  And we’ve got a few episodes now talking about other topics, which are really important and like quite honestly, like everybody wants to hear about the marketing, but it’s this other stuff that’s super important too and, you know, the whole goal is to balance in the firm, but there’s always this appetite for marketing.  So, I’m excited that we’re going to be talking about it today and really excited about the guests that we have to talk about it today.

If you remember, as you know, we talked about every show that every law firm, every small business has this triangle of what it is that a business must do.  We’ve got to acquire new clients.  We call that acquisition.  We’ve got to produce the results that we promise to those clients.  We call that production.  And we got to achieve the business of professional results for the owners, and we call that the reason.  Today’s episode though is about using marketing, not just to acquire more clients, but also to get your message out there.  If you’re anything like me, your law firm business is a means to achieve, not just financial results for yourself and those who rely on you which are essentially you got to produce those results.  Otherwise, you know, it’s a hobby, right?  But it’s also to make a difference in the world and marketing is an important part of how you do that.

And so now, it’s my pleasure to introduce our guests.  They are April Roberts and Tyler Roberts and they’re co-founders of NOMOS’ marketing.  And today’s episode of The Un-Billable Hour is marketing is messaging.  And again, my guests are April and Tyler Roberts, co-founders of NOMOS marketing.  April, once upon a time, was the director of extension for a National Collegiate Organization.  She discovered her passion for marketing client service after joining the wondrous agency as the Head of Account Management.  There, she supervises a team of seven account managers, handling 200 clients across the country while Tyler is an attorney.  He’s on a mission to make the law more accessible, more approachable and ultimately more human, and I really sympatico with that mission.  He discovered a passion for legal technology after working at several startups.  I’m also sympatico with that.

So, I’m very interested to talk to Tyler about all that, and he’s also been a reporter on Legal Trends.  He is an Editor for three different law related magazine titles.  He creates content, loves helping clients to bring their visions to life through storytelling and design, and I think that really must inform all of our marketing.  So, with that somewhat inadequate introduction, April and Tyler.  Welcome to the show.

April Roberts: Thanks for having us.  We are excited to be here.

Tyler Roberts: Thank you, Christopher.

Christopher T. Anderson: Absolutely, my pleasure.  I’m really, really glad to have you.  So, let’s get kicked off talking just about like how we got here.  So, first of all, on your website which I reviewed prior to the show, you make a point of telling that NOMOS is actually founded by two married couples.  Well, I’m presuming you’re one of them.  So, just like since I saw on the website, well, I just wanted to ask you like is that an important part of the NOMOS story?

April Roberts: Yes, it absolutely is.  You know, a lot of what we want to talk about today is what makes you unique.  And I think for us being a husband-and-wife team definitely is different than other marketing agencies in the legal space.  So, we’ve really found that as we lean into who we are, it really makes it work.  And I think a lot of the clients that we have also work with their spouses.  So, it’s really fun to share in this unique experience with them.  You know, there’s definitely some pros and consider.  And so, it’s fun to joke around about the challenges that we have as well of working with your spouse.

Christopher T. Anderson: Yeah, I bet.  And like how does that inform your marketing though?  What do you think is important about having that relationship and your other co-founders having that relationship to how you approach marketing for law firms?

Tyler Roberts: Well, I’ll say it never turns off.  We talk about this stuff all the time.  And so, when we’re driving, you know, to a family vacation, we’re listening to podcasts and we’re thinking about our clients and —

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— trying to figure out what we can do to make their message stronger, how can we get them, you know, to make a bigger impact or a bigger splash in their market.  And so, for us being a married couple and seeing the results that we’ve had, as April said when we really started to lean into that, shooting up to conferences together, you know, speaking together, doing podcast together, we started to see a real turn in our business just because people felt like they could relate to us a little bit better.

And like April said, we do have a lot of clients that work with their spouses or their partners, and it’s great for us to go to connect on that emotional level with them or at personal level.  And so, we try to encourage all of our clients to really lean into what makes them different, what makes them unique because a lot of times they’ll find that their ideal client has something in common with them and whenever we’re able to have that connection, that human connection, we always find that it’s better for the marketing but also just better for the attorney and their business in the long term.

Christopher T. Anderson: No, that definitely makes sense.  And I think that’s a really natural segue into one of the things I wanted to talk about.  Another thing that you discuss on your website that kind of caught my eye, particularly, you know, in marketing, I like and I find it important to not be the same as everybody else, right?  And so, one thing that you say on your website that’s not the same as anybody else is that you try to make the law more human.  First of all, just like whichever one you want to pick this up, what in the world do you mean by that?  Is it inhuman?

Tyler Roberts: I think this was something that came about about two or three years into business and really, for us, we just looked at how people were positioning their law firms in the marketplace and they were all saying the exact same thing.

Christopher T. Anderson: Yeah.

Tyler Roberts: You know, they were all focusing on the same slogans.  You know, we’ll see like one call that’s all-in-one market and we’ll see that in three different markets.  If we are going on a road trip, we’ll see the same billboard with different attorneys on there, you know, a handful of times.  And so, what we started to realize is that for a lot of people when they’re hiring an attorney, it may be the only time in their life that they’re doing that and they may be looking at one attorney and comparing them to another and there’s really no difference between the two.  It’s really just which phone number is easier to remember.  For a lot of our solo and small law firms that don’t necessarily have the capacity or the budget to market themselves on that kind of scale where, you know, they can be the one person that’s top of mind, they have to stand out in some way.

And one thing that we’ve realized is that if we can help them make that human connection early on whether that’s through a social post or through the website or through an email, it can help establish that trust, you can help people feel like this is someone they can confide in, they feel a little bit more comfortable picking up the phone and calling this person.  And for us, that’s really the competitive advantage.  So, we say we’re making it more human.  We’re trying to make it less intimidating, more approachable and really just trying to position our clients in a way that it feels natural to them into their perspective clients.

Christopher T. Anderson: Sure.  So, that makes sense to me.  But so and I totally, totally understand.  And I mean, if anybody has driven around the country or watch television and various markets, I mean, you just know like whoever sells that, it will be a 1-800 divorce number like just sells all the whole marketing package and, you know, it probably works because, otherwise, people would stop buying it.  But for the rest of the market, like there’s a lot of copycatting going on.  So, I get that part.  But more human, like there’s something else there.  Like is there something that makes that law firms are doing that makes them feel unapproachable or like I don’t want to say inhuman or unhuman but like scary.  Let’s use that word because human I think means less scary, right?  So, what are they doing wrong in that respect and how do you try to fix that?

April Roberts: Yeah, I think scary is a great word to say.  I also like to say intimidation because I think a lot of times, you know, kind of going back to what Tyler was saying, when people are contacting an attorney, it could be the worst thing that they’re going through in their life.  So, there’s all of these emotions around.  They’re nervous.  They really don’t know where to begin.  And the majority of people who are contacting an attorney are not a lawyer themselves, maybe don’t even know a lawyer.  It is very intimidating and scary to go through this.

So, you know, making sure that our clients or anybody really is taking a step back, putting themselves in the potential client’s shoes and saying, you know, what are the questions that the clients are probably asking?  What is keeping them up at night?  What is making this a scary process for them.  And also, asking yourself like, how do I help them feel more comfortable and that they can trust me?  I think that that’s a big difference in the shift of thinking within making it more approachable.

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And this could be done in so many different ways, which I know we’ll dive into.  But I think, you know, the first thing you have to do is really take a step back and say, “Hey, am I saying this in a way that is approachable for the clients and how can I make them feel most comfortable?”

Christopher T. Anderson:  Right.  Sure.  But if lawyers knew the answer to that question, they probably be doing it, right?  So, what should they be thinking about?  Like so, you said, put yourself in your client’s shoes.  How do you help people do that?  Because obviously, there seems to be some gap or disconnect because the marketing is not doing that and law firms do seem unapproachable.  So, how do you coach?  How do you counsel lawyers?  What should like the listeners of this show right now like, what could you tell them to be thinking about to help them be more approachable, be more human?

Tyler Roberts: I think a great place to start is to think about the problem that you’re trying to solve for your clients.  And a lot of times, we focus on the external problem which could be an injury or medical bills or bankruptcy or a contract dispute.  But there’s also these internal problems, like what’s going to happen with my job, can I support my family, who’s going to pay my medical bills, am I going to lose my home.  And if we can start to identify what those problems are, with those pain points are, then we can start to match solutions to those problems.  So, for example, you have intrusive thoughts about going to jail.  You’re really worried about what’s going to happen.  You’re worried about missing out on a year of your child’s life, for example.

Well, what’s great about the way you can position your law firm is you can actually provide the solution to that and you can explain how you’re going to take them through this process and how you’re going to guide them through the court system and how you’re going to explain every aspect of their case to them.  So that way, they know exactly what’s going to happen.  They can explain that to their family.  They can mentally and emotionally prepare for that and that’s just one example of how you can take what someone’s going through and craft a message that can really meet them where they’re at, help them feel more confident, more comfortable, and the decision to hire the attorney.  And then also, as they’re going through that process, understand what it is that they’re going through.

Christopher T. Anderson: So really, just basically, instead of thrusting at the legal problem, I’m going to solve this legal problem for you, like really thrust it at what are the effects of this going to be in your life and how are we going to make that better?

Tyler Roberts: Exactly.  I think a lot of times and I make this joke all the time.  I’m so used to writing an IRAC form as an attorney, like Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion.

Christopher T. Anderson: Sure.

Tyler Roberts: And a lot of times the mistake I see attorneys make on, like service pages or their blog post is like they take that same approach.  But when it comes to marketing, you need a different framework for that.  And so, focusing on benefits and features what life is going to look like after representation has happened, that’s what people care about.  That’s what they want to see.  And one of the things that we talk about all the time, that is such a pet peeve.  When I go into a law firm’s website and I see stock images of people who are in pain or people who are in handcuffs, people who are getting arrested, we don’t want to show people pictures of things that they’ve already experienced that are potentially triggering and causing a lot of pain.

Christopher T. Anderson: Just in case you forgot how much your life sucks, here’s a picture to remind you.

Tyler Roberts: Exactly, exactly.  And so, it’s like, rather than doing that, maybe show a parent that’s being reunited with their children.  Maybe, show someone who has been able to keep their home, someone who is successful in business, smiling faces.  That’s such an easy way to incorporate pictures of success into your marketing that go beyond just what is the issue.  Here’s the rule.  Here’s how we’re going to fix it.  But we can connect on an emotional level as well.

Christopher T. Anderson: Very cool.  We are talking with April Roberts and Tyler Roberts.  They are co-founders of NOMOS marketing, and we’ve been talking all about how to make law firms more human, more approachable, less scary or intimidating and by relating to the problems that they’re having in their life that are caused by their legal problem.  Nobody actually cares about the legal problem.  They care about how it’s affecting them.  We are going to take a break and hear from the folks who actually make this show possible.  But when we come back, April and Tyler, what I would like to do is shift our conversation now to talk about the message.  So, one of the things that you talk on your website is that marketing is all about the message.  I want to learn more about that when we come back from a word from the folks who make it all happen.

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Christopher T. Anderson: We are back with the co-founders of NOMOS Marketing.  It’s Tyler Roberts and April Roberts that we’ve been talking about how to make law firm seem more approachable.  But now, one of the other things I want to talk about is again from your website.  I noticed that you’ve talked about the fact that this is something that really resonates with me that marketing is all about the message and that you need to be carrying a message forward with your marketing.  What do you mean by that?  Like when you talk about that, what do you mean by that and what do you teach people about that to make their marketing better?

Tyler Roberts: Just as a baseline, one of the things that we try the conversation about early on with clients is that it’s not just about the marketing channel or the tactic that we’re using to promote the law firm.  A lot of times we get really sucked into the tactics whether that’s a backlink building or how we’re going to create a landing page or what the mechanism is for any particular marketing campaign.  And really what we need to focus on first is the message itself and how you are positioning your brand in the marketplace.  I think brand positioning gets left out so often when you’re talking about marketing any sort of business.  We tend to jump straight into, you know, who’s got the loudest voice and who’s got the megaphone.  But at the end of the day, if you don’t have something to say that’s meaningful and impactful, then you’re just going to be contributing to the noise around you.

And so, finding a message that really cuts through that noise is a huge part of marketing.  And I think, for us, we want to make sure that we are positioning ourselves as a different choice or as the only choice or the best choice for a particular case.  It doesn’t mean that’s going to apply to every single person in the market.  But it could apply to your target audience or your ideal client, and we want to be able to figure out what that is and what’s going to help resonate your marketing with them.  So that way, they make the decision to contact you.

Christopher T. Anderson: Usually like, you should carry that across channel.  So, if you’re doing some paid search, you’re doing your website and search engine optimization, let’s say you’re doing billboards or television or radio like this is — are you recommending to your clients like that this theme carry across all of this?

April Roberts: Absolutely.  You want to make sure that the messaging is consistent.  So, that way when they see it on a TV ad or when they’re driving down the road, it starts to remind them.  Hey, I should keep this attorney in mind.  So, that’s definitely something that we want to make sure that the messaging is consistent.  So, that it’s top of mind.

Christopher T. Anderson: Yeah.  So, I mean, because let’s face it, I mean, the number of ads on paid search, the number of interactions that people have with attorney marketing is large, right?  And we can tell its large because the pay, the cost per click is high.  We can tell it’s large because the advertising rates are high.  We can tell it’s large because all you have to do is turn your television on in late night or early morning hours and the law firms are piling in.  You can tell it’s large because as you drive down the road, a lot of billboards are bought up by some of the larger firms in the country.  So, there’s all this noise, right?  Consumers are hit.  And like you said, I mean, I think you brought up a really good point, like they are perhaps nothing else they will spend this kind of money on in their lives.  Are they this unsophisticated about, right?  They just don’t — you can go get a book on how to buy a car.  You can get a book certainly on how to buy a house.

And by the way, when you go buy a house, what do you have?  You have an expert that goes along with you to teach you how to buy that house, right?  Because you’re spending a lot of money, but people will spend 5, 10, 30,000 dollars on an attorney and it may be the only time in life they have to do it and there’s nobody to guide them.  So, in this crowded space where there’s a lot of noise and the consumers don’t know really what they’re doing, how can a law firm stand out and help bridge that gap?

Tyler Roberts: Well, I think there’s a few things you can look at.  One is differentiator.  So, just a baseline, what makes your law firm different from every other law firm out there?

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You also look at your culture and your team.  So, what’s it like to work with your law firm?  What’s it like to work with your team?  What kind of culture you have in the office and do you do anything fun for your team and how do you contribute to their success?  There’s also social proof.  So, this a lot of times I think it’s forgotten or it’s like taken for granted.  But just client testimonials, reviews, case results, case studies, it doesn’t matter what type of law you practice.  Even if it’s B2B, you can use case studies as a powerful way to connect with people and showcase the difference between your law firm room and another.  And the last piece to that is establishing authority on some level.  So, having a white paper or an e-book or even a physical book, a podcast even, something to showcase that you are a leader in your field that you have people who follow you, that trust you, people that look to you for guidance.  Those are the types of things that you can incorporate into your marketing pretty early on and pretty easily to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Christopher T. Anderson: Yeah.  And so, I think first they have to be willing to engage with you, right?  So, I think those are great ideas.  Once they say, “Hey, let me find out more about this firm.”  But I like what you’re talking about like you kind of go deeper like on that sort of that first superficial like, boom, boom, boom, it’s coming at me.  That’s the one that seems interesting.  And you said one thing about actually highlighting your team and you see a lot of billboards with like everybody dressed in the suits, doing the billboard pose, like I’m sure you mean something different than that.  Like, so why the clients care about the team and how can you show that in a way that makes you sort of more interesting?

Tyler Robers: Yeah.  I think with the team, it’s one of those things where you’re going to see like the primary attorney or attorneys that are on the billboard, on the TV commercial, even in the masthead of your website.  But a lot of times you’re working with the team, you’re working with the paralegal or someone who is dedicated to making sure you have a great experience as you’re working with the law firm.  And so, I think that there is kind of this almost like sense of like a bait and switch with attorney marketing where you see like the primary attorney like, “Oh, I’m going to work with him or her, and I know that they have this great reputation.”

But then, you get into the firm and you’re in the system and you’re working with another team member, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  I think in order to build a good scalable business, you need to have team members that you can rely on.  But by promoting your team, at least the culture, maybe not necessarily individuals, we’re talking about how your team is what drives the business, that can really help put someone at ease, especially when there’s a handoff from intake to the associate or the paralegal that’s assigned to that case.

Christopher T. Anderson: Yeah.  And so, yeah, highlighting them.  That makes a lot of sense.  That, I mean, especially as a differentiator.  Like I think the message you’re saying is pretty consistent, like be different, show so many different, show something human, and the team certainly is the more human face of it.  One of the words that gets thrown around a lot and sort of is a good segue into this is authenticity, right?  Be authentic in your marketing.  I see a lot of lawyers go like, where do I buy some authenticity?  Like just I’ll pay you.  Is it more?  Like do I need to spend more to be authentic?  And it’s almost like it’s one of those buzzwords like, “Oh, authenticity, that’s what I need to do.”  How do you — like let me just back up a second just you define it.  What do you do?  Because I bet, you’re encouraging your clients to be more authentic.  What do you mean by that and how do you actually implement that?  How do you get someone to show more authenticity?

April Roberts: I think it’s really about being true to who you are and not just copying what your competitors are doing.  And we talk about like the TV ads, the billboards, all being the exact same, a bunch of people in suits with their arms crossed kind of scowling.  It’s like you don’t have to do that.  If that’s who you are, fine, absolutely do that.  But if that’s not really who you are and you wear bright colors or whatever, like lean into who you are, have fun with this.  And something that we also talked a little bit about is if there’s a new platform out there where all the competitors are on it, but you just hate it.  For example, Tick-Tock does.

You know, when Tyler and I were talking it’s like that’s kind of the first thing that comes to mind and it’s like, if everyone else is doing it, don’t feel like you have to do it just because they’re doing it.  If that’s not something you want to do, you’re going to go on and you’re not going to enjoy it, number one.  And it’s going to come across to potential clients that way.

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So, make sure whatever you’re doing is something that feels true to who you are and something that you’re going to have fun with because I think that’s really what being authentic comes down to.

Christopher T. Anderson: So, it’s actually speaking to what you enjoy doing or who you enjoy being.

April Roberts: Exactly.

Christopher T. Anderson: Yeah.  We are talking with April and Tyler Roberts of NOMOS Marketing.  When we come back, first of all, we’re going to find out what the word NOMOS means.  We’ve got to find that out before we go anywhere and how we got to there.  And I want to talk to you in a little bit more brass-tacks term.  At the beginning of the show, I talked about, you know, it’s marketing, it’s production and then it’s about producing results.  So, I want to talk to you about how we achieve ROI with some of the things that we’ve been discussing after we hear a word from our sponsors.

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Christopher T. Anderson: Alright, we’re back with NOMOS Marketing and co-founders, Tyler and April Roberts.  We’ve been talking about messaging.  We’ve been talking about authenticity.  We’ve been talking about making law firms approachable.  But now, we’re going to talk about money because, at the end of the day, these are all great ideas.  It’s nice to be authentic.  It’s nice to have a message and it’s nice to be more human, to be more approachable.  But if it all doesn’t do what it needs to do to generate business in a way that produces good ROI, then it doesn’t matter, right?  It’s just fun.  So, let’s stop being fun and let’s talk about brass tacks.  How does what we’ve been talking about so far fit into creating return on investment, return on marketing spend?  When people spend money to get this marketing out the door, they need new clients and need revenue, how does doing it the way we’ve been talking about translate into that?

Tyler Roberts: I love this question and I know April does as well because she handles reporting for all of our clients and definitely looks at all the metrics.  You know, I think we can look at keyword rankings all day long.  We can look at traffic to your website all day long.  But what really matters are form completions and phone calls.  And one way that leaning in to who you are, being authentic, telling your story can help with that is that you’re engaging your clients early on, you’re establishing trust even without having a conversation with them, and you’re able to help them feel more comfortable with picking up the phone or filling out a form.

Some ways that we look at this is the conversion rate or goal completion rate on a website.  I think more specifically you can look at different ad campaigns with Google ads.  If you have the same line of text that everyone else has when you’re looking at Google pay-per-click ads, what’s going to help you stand out against someone else?  Really, they’re just looking at the hierarchy of, well, who’s number one in the ad space.  But if you can say something a little bit different and kind of punchy or something that stands out a little bit, then you’re going to have a higher click-through rate.  So, if we can accomplish a higher click-through rate, we have a higher potential conversion rate.

We’ll look at the landing page.  What is the landing page say?  Does it have an image of the attorney above the fold?  Does it have something that says something other than injured in an accident?  Contact us today.  We can look at the variables there, and we can start to optimize and see, is the conversion rate going up through the website?  Are we seeing more people making the phone call and completing the form?  From what we have seen in our experience, any time that we have even just a basic headshot of the attorney with a welcome message on a landing page, the conversion rate goes from 10% to 20% and it just makes it a much more powerful campaign.  And so, just looking at even just, in this case, Google ads, you can see that difference just with a few tweaks with the added self.

And just to kind of clarify this a little bit further, if you look at the difference between a Google ad and a Google local service ad which actually shows a picture of the attorney along with reviews, the conversion rates are so much higher and it is more competitive.  But you can see that the click-through rates are higher.  The conversion rates are higher because people are seeing the attorney before they even click on the ad itself.  And so, I think that’s kind of like where we look for proof that this stuff works.  And obviously with SEO and social, you’ll see more engagement, more traffic.  But the clear-cut example in terms of ROI is through paid advertising, and I think that’s one reason why we’ve seen that be so successful.  And so, we just try to translate that throughout all of our different campaigns regardless of the platform that we’re on.

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Christopher T. Anderson: When lawyers with our listeners were looking at the results, like because now we’re talking about some key concepts here.  You talked about click-through rate.  But even more importantly, you said like all we really care about is form fills and phone calls and conversion rate from the website.  What’s a good one?  Like, can you start — like people listen to this and like, I have a conversion rate.  But the question is, is it a good conversion rate or is a bad conversion rate?  Like, are there any benchmarks that you share with folks?

Tyler Roberts: So, we did some research on this.  And April might be able to speak to this a little bit more about that.  Legal is an oddball.

April Roberts: Well, it really depends on the practice area, and I think that that’s what makes legal a little bit more difficult than other industries, like health, dental, anything like that because you’re looking at personal injury versus other practice areas, like family law, DUI, things like that.  And so, I think that it really depends on your practice area.  I think it’s where you’re located in your budget.  So, if someone comes into it and they have a thousand dollars, but everyone else in their market has $10,000, that money is going to be gone really quickly.  And so, I think there are so many variables at play in the legal industry that is hard to say until you do a little bit of research on that specific area that they’re in in the country.  And so, that’s what makes legal a little bit more challenging to have that exact number kind of nailed down.

Christopher T. Anderson: So, you have to give me a number.

Tyler Roberts:  I would say like, for us, personally, like our agency regardless of what regardless of what practice here we are looking at, we always aim for above 10%, ideally 12% of a conversion rate which means a phone call or form completion.  We’ve gotten clients up to about 20%, 25%.  Like April said, it depends on the market.  It depends on the budget.  It also depends on the number of impressions that we’re getting.  Sometimes, search volume is lower for certain services and —

Christopher T. Anderson: Sure.

Tyler Roberts: You know, and that’s just part of it.  And so, if we see a dip below that 10% mark, that’s really where we look at the landing page.  Is there something wrong with the ad?  Is something not working, right?  But there are so many great tools that you can use to get you to a good spot.  Google quality score being one of them.  You know, just kind of like as a first glance to make sure everything looks healthy.  But that’s why you optimize.  That’s why you test things out.  That’s why you don’t just set it and forget it.  And you just want to make sure that you’re constantly refining that to make sure that you’re within that kind of conversion rate for your campaigns.

Christopher T. Anderson: I get it and I appreciate you sharing that number.  That’s really a good one for people to look at.  And, you know, that I think the more important thing is like whatever the number is, it can be better and there’s things you can do.  And some of the stuff that we’ve been talking about can make it better, right?  Alright, I teased it.  I asked it.  I said I was going to get to it, NOMOS.  Why is your marketing company called NOMOS?

April Roberts: Well, this is a good one.  Tyler puts his nerd glasses on for this one.

Tyler Roberts: So, we were trying to find a good name for our agency, and we were just trying to think of something to feel.  Again, something I felt like true to us and something that would lend itself well to multiple practice areas.  So, NOMOS is actually a Greek for law.  And in ancient Greece, it was the personification of the law.  So, one of the reasons why we say we’re making it a lot more human is that we see our clients as kind of like the modern-day embodiment of the law, right?  And so, for us, it’s just a nice way to tie everything in together, you know, our philosophy into marketing as well as who we serve.

We were at a happy hour.  I forgot when, maybe a year or two ago, and an attorney actually called us like, oh yeah, like law marketing.  I was like you’re the first person who’s ever gotten that the moment I said it.  So, it’s just a fun little nod to ancient history.  Like April said, I’m a philosophy nerd.  I majored in philosophy and undergrad.  And so, for me, it’s just kind of a fun way to tie that all in together.

Christopher T. Anderson: Excellent.  That’s not the answer I was going to expect.  So, that’s fantastic.  Listen, as we were coming up at the end of the show, the listeners are interested in this to try and improve their marketing constantly.  You know, we have talked about noise.  There’s a lot of marketing noise that gets thrown at lawyers all the time.  What’s one thing that a lawyer can do right now to improve their marketing today?  Like what can they change today to get better results?

April Roberts: It’s really about establishing what your differentiators are, so really taking a step back and asking yourself, what is it that makes me different.  And then, look at all of your marketing, look at your website, your social media, —

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— your branding, and see if that’s reflected in there and I think that that’s a perfect place to start.  And then, it kind of leads into other things.  But without, I think that that right there is the stuff that a lot of people forget.  They just started doing things without stopping and thinking.  Is it reflected and what I’m already doing?  So, that’s definitely one thing that they can do today that will definitely help.

Christopher T. Anderson: I think it’s a great, great idea.  So, self-knowledge is perfect.  Unfortunately, that is also it.  That wraps up this edition of The Unbillable Hour.  So, I thank you all to the listeners for hanging out there with us.  Our guests today have been April Roberts and Tyler Roberts, and they are the co-founders of NOMOS Marketing.  April and Tyler, we can’t cover this all in, whatever, 30 minutes that we had.  So, if people want to learn more about some of the stuff we talked about, how can they reach out to you?

April Roberts: Yeah, they can definitely reach out.  Our email is april.roberts, R-O-B-E-R-T-S, @nomosmarketing.com.  Website is nomosmarketing.com.  And you can also follow us on social media at NOMOS Marketing.

Christopher T. Anderson: Fantastic!  Well, thank you.  And, of course, I’m Christopher T. Anderson and I look forward to seeing all of you.  Look, I don’t see you, hearing or having you hear me but having feeling the presence of this audience.  Next month with another great guests as we learn more about topics that help us build the law firm business that works for you.  Remember, you can subscribe to all the editions of this podcast at legaltalknetwork.com or on iTunes.  Thanks for joining us and I’ll be speaking at you again real soon.

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Outro:  The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by Legal Talk Network, its officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders and subsidiaries.  None of the content should be considered legal advice.  As always, consult a lawyer.  Thanks for listening to the Un-Billable Hour, the law practicing advisory podcast.  Join us again for the next edition right here with the Legal Talk Network.

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