Legal services consultant and writer John O. Cunningham has published another feature article on Legal Marketing Reader, this time aimed at small law firms. “Small law firm practitioners often lack a mega-firm’s arsenal of marketing resources,” according to Cunningham. “But there are many ways to compete effectively for the attention of clients and referral sources without expensive advertising,” he said.

Read the article, by clicking on the title below:
“Do-It-Yourself” Marketing for Small Law Firms

One of Legal Marketing Reader’s blog feeds went off the air recently making room for a new blog in our “Hollywood Squares of Legal Marketing.” Check out our newest feed from The Legal Water Cooler written by Heather M. Milligan in the bottom right “square” on the Top Blogs tab. Heather takes her theme of sharing info around the office water cooler and brings it to the web — providing loads of industry talk on hot topics for law firm marketing types. All with a sense of fun and fancy. Give it a look and let us know what you think.

As a reader of Legal Marketing Reader, you might be overlooking the list of Legal Marketing 101 links in the bottom right of the home page. These articles are chosen for being especially timely, helpful and practical — full of great advice or reporting. We consider them “best of the web” material. So just in case you missed them, we’re pointing  out 5 recent articles we’ve added to the pot.

• 25 Value-Added Free Services to Offer Your Clients
• How to Beat a Better-Branded Firm in a Business Pitch
• Overturning the Downturn: How to Make This a Great Time for Business Development
• Big-Firm Partners Go Small to Keep and Attract Frugal Clients
• Lawyers Using the Web to Network

And if you know of an especially good article on a law firm marketing and business development topic, please drop us a line at editor -at- legalmarketingreader.com.

Thanks for reading.

The latest guest feature article on Legal Marketing Reader is written by marketing consultant Katie Rutter. Ten Ways to Boost Later Partner Integration is a timely topic and provides tips on creating a lateral integration program to make sure law firm laterals hit the ground running, get up to speed, and find their fit in the new firm culture.

Check it out at: Lateral Partner Integration.

The latest feature article on Legal Marketing Reader is authored by Deborah Scaringi.
Recessionary Thinking:
12 Smart Marketing Tips for Tough Times
In difficult financial times, running a successful service firm and business requires more than hard work. Careful decision making, cautious purchases, improved efficiency and streamlined budgeting sit at the top of the list. Adding marketing expenditures to this list may not seem prudent during down times, but you must reconsider. Maintaining and increasing marketing activities in a difficult market will help your business soar when the economy bounces back. In fact, research by the American Business Press shows that companies that continue to market themselves during a down economy grow four times faster than companies that don’t.

Read the full article here: Recession Marketing.

A new feature article has been added to Legal Marketing Reader. It is written by consultants Robert Buday, Bernie Thiel, Susan Buddenbaum, and Tim Parker — and is essentially a large excerpt from the book Thoughts on Thought Leadership. It is an excellent argument, and based on real research, on the why and how of getting marketing and sales effort to work in concert for maximum benefit. In the difficult times ahead, now is the time to turn ad hoc marketing and business development activities into a strategic and systematic effort. Check it out here:

Getting Marketing and Business Development on the Same Page

What do you get when you combine the power of Google search with the collective wisdom of Legal Marketing Reader? A powerful 1-2 punch! With the new Legal Marketing MetaSearch tool you can “Google-search” all 27 sites we aggregate in addition to LMR’s own article backlog. So now, in addition to using LMR to stay up on news and industry talk, you can use it to dig deeper and search all 27 sites for answers to specific queries.

The idea is essentially the same, we’ve narrowed the choices to our favorite, most useful and most reputable resources to give you more information in less time — with more relevant results and less clutter! We think it’s pretty great! Give it a try. It’s in the top right corner of every page.

The latest feature article on Legal Marketing Reader is sound advice from consultant Jim Hassett. The article, “Six Facts About New Business — What Every Lawyer Needs To Know,” is an entire free chapter from his book, Legal Business Development, A Step by Step Guide. And just like the book, the article provides basic and easy to understand and apply tips on how to win new business. As the article states, learning how to sell isn’t something attorneys learn in law school, but it is a learned process. Check out the article, download the chapter, and share it with attorneys at your firm. And remember you learned about it here at Legal Marketing Reader!

Legal Marketing Reader is happy to welcome its first home page sponsor! Watch360 offers a nice automated competitive intelligence tool that is targeted at law firm business development folks — so it’s a great fit for our audience. I actually tried the service using its free, 2-week trial, and it works like a charm. It notifies you once a day of new content and changes to competitor law firm web sites that you specify. I was a little skeptical at first thinking, “Can’t you just set up a bunch of Google News alerts to do the same thing?” Well, the answer is no. I did set up a bunch of Google alerts and the results didn’t even come close to those of the Watch360 service. But don’t take my word for it, check it out yourself with your own free trial. Please support our advertisers!

Do you have a product or service aimed at law firm marketers? Consider advertising on Legal Marketing Reader.

For more information, email ads@legalmarketingreader.com.

Regular readers will notice a couple new feeds on Legal Marketing Reader’s blog dashboard aggregator. Most obvious is that David Maister’s blog has gone into hibernation, and while it remains a great resource for all that is posted their, continuing to include it in LMR’s magical squares no longer made sense.

Two new featured feeds are Stephen Seckler’s Counsel to Counsel and Peter Darling’s Business Development blog. Just tryin’ to keep in fresh! : )