Attract Qualified Visitors to Your Website by Sending Them Away
Should you put a link to LinkedIn on a biography page of a law firm website? That was the question posed recently on the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) listserv by Gail Lamarche Director of Marketing at Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt.
I opined that, for professional services firms such as this law firm, the attorney biography page is the best thing we have as a “money page” on the website. Therefore, driving visitors away from the money page was, strategically, a bad idea. Moreover, it seemed if there were really content on LinkedIn that was valuable to the site visitor, then that information should be on the bio page. And if it wasn’t there, the bio page was somehow deficient.
Smug I was in the righteousness of my response. But I got an earful of dissent from LMA listserv contributors. The arguments are worthy of consideration:
Jayne Navarre, LawGravity, presented these points persuasively:
- Branding – The LinkeIn link is like a hip badge of Web 2.0 awareness
- Connections – LinkedIn provides a transparent view to an attorney’s connections, arguably a value to any prospective client
- Authoritative - Access to the LinkedIn Questions & Answers provides additional proof of the attorney’s authority
Heather Milligan, Director of Marketing at Barger Wolen emphasized that LinkedIn:
- Human - helps make the attorney “dynamic, human, liked”( in case we have any residual concerns about their humanity) and helps the attorney pass the “known, liked & trusted” test of prospective clients.
- Dimensional - And in rebuttal to my “bio is deficient” comment, Heather notes that to maintain a certain appearance consistent with other bios and the overall website, “the firm bio is controlled for content, style, etc….(while) LinkedIn is the perfect place where an attorney can bring together their outside interests and professional careers, making them more human and likeable.
- Connections - Perhaps the most valuable feature, LinkedIn is fundamentally a connecting tool that might serendipitously reveal a third party connection to the site visitor which presents all kinds of opportunity for real introduction.
It’s not a slam dunk either way. The answer to Gail’s original question seems to be, “It depends.” The circumstances dictate the strategy. I’ll give it a nod of possibility and something worth trying. Yes, I know, “first I was against it, now I’m for it.” Thanks to the enlightenment of my marketing peers.
But I’ll have this last (never!) word. Think doubly hard about sending your site visitor from the most valuable conversion page of your site to an information wasteland. Don’t do it unless the LinkedIn profile to which you are sending visitors:
- provides a rich set of business connections
- demonstrates some effort to contribute authoritatively to the online Q&A discourse
- otherwise expands on the website attorney bio page
- (if possible) provides a path back
And whatever you do, measure the results. Professionals keep score.
Now you can link away to my LinkedIn profile. 
Sonny:
I’m still not convinced. I understand the value of LinkedIn. I have my own profile on it. And I opine away on topics of interest. What’s missing from the entire listserv discussion is focus and strategy. Do rainmakers really need a LinkedIn profile? Is that where we want them spending their time? My answer is an emphatic “NO.” LinkedIn as a business development tool is an 18-24 month process — at a minimum. It’s probably best used by younger attorneys who have no clients, no book and a few prospects. Too many of my colleagues spend too much of their time trying to help associates and underperforming partners generate business. I prefer to hunt with my pack of big dogs, face to face with clients, not thru electronic “billboards” that I hope they someday stumble upon. Few law firm marketing personnel spend any time assessing their website traffic. How can they put so much blind faith in LinkedIn and/or other forms of Web 2.0, when they have no — or at best a limited — idea of how many visits these profiles generate? This is just another blind stab into the abyss that have Managing Partners scratching their heads over their marketing departments’ “tactics.”
I often feel like this topic is a battle over the hearts and minds of my marketing and biz dev peers — and I feel I’m losing. Folks seem more interested in what’s easy and controllable as compared to the messy, difficult and frustrating job of cajoling, handholding, encouraging, lecturing, bitching at attorneys to visit clients, listen to their needs and learn their businesses.
All I know is I have definitive, big ticket results for the “old school” face-to-face way — from two different firms. The next time I hear a definitive business development result from someone other than Kevin O’Keefe related to Web 2.0, it will be the first.
Sorry for the rant. I know this is sharp edged and won’t win me any friends among my legal marketing peers, but the breathless backers of everything Web 2.0 need to come back to reality.
Show me some definitive, measurable results and I will shut the f*** up.
Otherwise, they should close their yaps.
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