What Are They Selling You NOW?
I recently got an urgent call from a client late in the afternoon who said he had to talk to me as soon as possible! Concerned, I excused myself from the meeting I was in and called him immediately. Here’s what he said: “I have this FindLaw rep who’s been hounding me for a couple of years, but now he has something brand-new he says I have to jump on immediately or I will lose the opportunity!”
DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR???
You Didn’t Even Know It Was a Scam (Until Now)
We’re all used to the spam calls that begin, “This is the IRS. You owe this much money in taxes. Please call this number right now or they will file a lawsuit against you.” The voice is a robotic recording, and you sigh with annoyance and delete the voicemail for the millionth time.
What you may not know is that some marketing companies operate on the same “spray and pray” principles. Engaging in unsavory recruiting techniques is one thing, but trying to confuse or mislead potential clients is another.
Recently, one of our SLS clients passed along a message they received from another marketer. The marketer (a real human) claimed to be a Google partner, claimed that our client had “incorrect indexing of information” on their website, and that he (the marketer) could only speak to the owner of the website! Because only the firm’s owner has access to the checkbook, of course. Read the rest »
3 Questions to Ask BEFORE You Sign with a Legal Marketing Company
If you only read one thing on this website, make sure it’s this article. Before you enter into any sort of marketing agreement, protect your investment by getting answers to the following questions:
What Marketing Companies Really Mean When They “Guarantee” Results
The most important thing to take away from this article is this…
A GUARANTEE CAN MEAN EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT IT TO MEAN, OR SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT AT THE SAME TIME.
How is that even possible? Allow us to explain…
You Program Your Smartphone – Have You Programmed Your Staff?
If you want something done right…
“Showing them will take too long – I’ll just do it myself.”
If you’ve ever thought or said something similar, you’re not alone. As an attorney, you know how every piece of the puzzle works and how they all fit together. Being the expert, it often feels like you are the only person qualified to make every single decision, from the trivial to the critical. But, when your case load is so overwhelming that it’s too much for one person to handle, what can you do?
Little things can take up a huge part of your day, so having someone else take care of them is a great solution. After all, paralegals and support staff are there to help you, and assistants are meant to do just that – assist. All you need to do is hire someone qualified, with experience in your practice area, and all your problems will be solved. Right?
Wrong.
Odds are, you rely on a smartphone – and probably a few other gadgets – on a daily basis. But no device arrives from the manufacturer pre-programmed. Read the rest »
The Five Scariest Marketing Companies to Run Away from This Halloween
It’s that time of year again! Doorbells will be rung, doors will be knocked on, and your home will be visited by ghosts, ghouls, and other spooky characters. Adults will attend parties dressed up in make-believe, all in honor of a holiday that’s about tricks and treats. But while trick-or-treaters only knock on your door one night per year, scary spammers in reputable marketing company costumes flood you with offers 365 days per year. If you aren’t careful, you could find yourself tricked into some scary SEO strategies, and that is certainly no treat. This Halloween and beyond, be sure to be on the lookout for the Top 5 Scariest Types of Marketing Solicitations and Scams.
Solicitations from Marketing Companies: Sour Grapes!
It’s no secret that SLS Consulting is all about white hat marketing tactics. When we take on a new client, we review the previous marketing techniques applied to their site, and “clean the site up” accordingly. Sometimes our clients come to us relatively unscathed by black hat marketing techniques, while other times we definitely have our work cut out for us.
Let’s set the record straight right now. When we talk to potential clients about how we can help their marketing campaigns, we talk about our past successes, and even recommend that they speak to our current or past clients to get a better feel of what it’s like to work with us. Past clients regularly refer new business to us, and our current clients always speak highly of our services when they’re talking to a potential SLS client.
Fast, Cheap or Good – You Can Only Have Two When It Comes to Digital Marketing
As an Internet marketing company that’s been around since the early days of the Internet (1999, to be exact), we have helped A LOT of attorneys over the years establish a stronger digital web presence. Some of our clients have come to us without a lot of experience in marketing themselves while others have varying degrees of online marketing expertise. Regardless of their online savvy, almost every prospective client ends up asking the seemingly unavoidable (and practically unanswerable) question:
How quickly is my website going to rank on page one?
Trust us when we tell you that ANY marketing firm that gives you a specific answer to this question isn’t being truthful with you…
Solicitations from Marketing Companies- Spam Slam Volume One
If you watched our most recent “Spam Slam” video, you heard us talking about a recent solicitation one of our clients received regarding reciprocal links. If you didn’t see the video and stumbled upon this article anyway, you can watch it below:
Before we go any further, let us clarify that reciprocal links aren’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, if two websites have overlapping interests, and linking back to each other makes for a better overall user experience, that’s perfectly fine. Google is all about user experience these days, so providing this type of beneficial, on-page experience makes complete sense. However, that wasn’t necessarily the intent alluded to in the email.
Google’s Quality Guidelines regarding Link Schemes reads as follows:
Solicitations from Marketing Companies: Don’t Believe Everything You Read!
At SLS, we let our portfolio do all the talking. We don’t send out solicitation emails, and we don’t make broad general statements to scare potential clients into signing with us. We let them take a look at the work we’ve done for clients, and even encourage them to reach out to those clients to ask their own questions.
That’s right. We encourage potential clients to reach out to our current clients…ANY of our current clients…because we’re that confident in the work we put out and the finished product we give to our clients. But that’s just how WE acquire new business. Overall, it’s safe to say that there are a ton of marketing tactics out there used to attract and obtain new business, with some of the tactics being a little more questionable than the others.
Recently, one of our clients forwarded us an email he received in regard to the penalties his site had recently been hit with due to Google’s algorithm changes. The only problem was that our client’s site hadn’t been hit with any penalties, and his rankings were just as strong as ever. See the body of the email below. We’ve removed names and anything else to identify our client and the marketing company:
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