LISI’s own Communications Manager + Legal Content Writer, Julie Ackerman, joins host Taryn Elliott, Director of Client Success + Marketing, for the next installment of LISI’s News + Views + To Dos series.
Julie, a lawyer and writer, works with many of LISI’s clients to create content that is simultaneously marketing-focused and legally-driven. As the role of content creation grows in a lawyer’s marketing and business development plans, Julie is uniquely positioned to share how having a strong legal marketing writer can contribute to your firm’s growth.
Taryn:
Hello everyone. Welcome to LISI’s News + Views + To Dos. I’m Taryn Elliot, the Director of Client Success + Marketing at LISI, and I am joined by Julie Ackerman, the Communications Manager + Legal Content Writer here at LISI. Wanted to make sure I got all of that correct.
Julie:
Hi.
Taryn:
Hi. I don’t know about you, but it is snowing here in Indianapolis today.
Julie:
That, wow! Did it like a lot, a little bit?
Taryn:
So it’s been really weird. Nothing is sticking, but earlier today it was like, I could count how many flakes I could see outside. But like you could see them. Like, I was like, it’s snowing, but I could only see like 10 flakes at a time. And then we got like the big fat like all stuck together flakes for a while. And now it’s more flakes but kind of bordering on rain. But this is after, Saturday morning my youngest son came running in my room and he is like it snowed and there was snow like covering the grass.
Julie:
Wow! Is that, is it earlier than usual for snow?
Taryn:
Yes, it is. Like everyone’s still trying to get all their leaves up and then the snow will come.
Julie:
Yeah. Okay. Cause we don’t normally get snow. It’s very unusual in November, sometimes in December. Usually like January, February if we’re gonna get it. Yeah. I like snow and like, I like just enough snow, then it’s pretty.
Taryn:
Yeah. I like, like one or two good snowfalls and I prefer them to fall over a weekend when like we can hunker down inside and look at the pretty snow and have fires and watch movies and make chili.
Julie:
I have rediscovered sledding also with my kids, which you know, there was probably a solid 30 years or so when I didn’t sled at all. And now I do really enjoy going sledding with the kids.
Taryn:
Yeah, I usually considered it a good winter if we got like at least one good sledding in. I mean I don’t need 10, one or two is is ideal. And I agree.
We had a lot of fun and now my kids are older that I don’t have, like, I can’t stand there and supervise which has its pluses and negatives. Negative being, like you’re not moving so you really have to bundle up to stand. And we have to drive to the nearest snow hill. Last year, we went sledding right before we went skiing and in Indiana we have to drive to ski. So I don’t worry about that too much cause we just drive somewhere that gets snow. But I could at least try out all of my ski here while we are sledding.
Well, I am so excited to have you on this episode of News + Views + To Dos. We’ve been talking about it for a little bit and it finally worked out and I especially like it coming on the heels of us putting out a lot of content about content, which you are very well versed in. So I am going to kick things off with our first question, and that is, what news would you like to share with our audience?
Julie:
Yeah, so I, what I’m most excited about right now professionally is how much LISI, our agency has grown over the last year. I mean, really, we’ve been growing quite a bit over the last few years but this year I came on, you know, full-time in an expanded role where I’m still working with clients, still writing and editing and also supervising all the writing function for the agency. So I get to do, collaborate a lot with teammates on communications from LISI as well as, you know, I just I kind of know all the writing things that are happening which I enjoy a lot.
Taryn:
Well, and I know from our perspective we’re very excited to have you in this expanded role as somebody who does LISI marketing and a little bit of content work with some of our clients. Like, it’s just, it’s nice to have somebody who is a writer by trade, overseeing all of our content. You know, somebody to go to with grammar questions.
Julie:
Thank you. Yeah, I love it. As you know, I’m like, Ooh! A grammar question. Like I’m very excited about them.
Taryn:
And I think a lot of people don’t have the benefit of that. I saw something today that like, one to three-person marketing departments are just marketing. They’re like, and there was a list of all of these things, you know, social media and press releases, and public relations, and web administrator and like all these things. There’s probably like 15 things on the list. But part of that is having to sometimes be your own editor and you are not always your own good editor. And also someone who has that background is clearly better at it than somebody who might not have that background. We all bring different skill sets too. So I love that we have you as a resource both internally which is what I do a lot of and externally for all of our clients.
Julie:
Aww! Thank you. Yeah, that’s makes me feel good. And then also, you know we have two interns that are working with us now. I’ve gotten to work a little bit with Jovanna Hopkins, she’s also a writer. So we’ve collaborated a little bit have not worked as much with Anthony Ferguson but have just enjoyed getting to know both of them and,
Taryn:
And so Jovanna’s helping with more of our marketing functions, our outsource marketing services, and Anthony’s helping more with development, website development
Julie:
Yeah. The textile theory.
Taryn:
Yes. So he does work closely with some of our colleagues.
Julie:
Oh yes, yes, yes. Absolutely.
Taryn:
So whereas Jovanna works more closely with Julie and I and a couple other people. And I’m very excited to have both of them on the team.
Julie:
Yeah, I know, it’s been really great. And I really appreciate their energy and just having them you know, as part of our team has been really fun. And then also Dan Martin joined our team this year and he is our, I mean, I just think of him as like our marketing tech guru. He just adds so much to our team with as far as S.E.O. and just his technical expertise has been, I think a really valuable addition for me, just in my own role and I know for clients and just, you know, in many, many ways. So, yeah.
Taryn:
Yeah, that has also, again, added a lot which I think is one of the benefits of working with, you know, an agency is that, you, you know, firms of a certain size can’t go out and hire an S.E.O. expert and, you know, somebody who’s well versed in analytics, and a content writer, and a marketer, and a social media expert, and a web developer, and so on and so forth. And I know the sweet spot for a lot of our clients is that you get all of those people and you don’t have to pay them, you know, for 40 hours a week, every week.
You just get the time you need from each of them. And when I was in-house, like that would’ve been really beneficial. Because it’s hard to be all of those things.
So it’s really nice to see the expansion and see how we’re able to work with clients in an expanded way and really bring like the deep expertise to it that, you know, you can’t always get with a solo or even a small group of marketers.
Julie:
Yeah, yeah. I know, it’s been, it’s really been fun to, you know, I loved being here since I started a few years ago, but I, you know, as we continue to grow, it just keep liking it more and more. So yeah, that’s my news.
Taryn:
Yeah, I love having, I love our team and it’s a good group to kind of get everybody together and bring in different perspectives and how everybody’s done it. I especially love, which we didn’t talk about, that you are an attorney by schooling and by practice. Both you and Ann Caskey who does a lot of our other, who also does a lot of our content writing. Both you guys, are attorneys, as is Jason Lisi, our founder. And when working on content with lawyers, of course that brings a lot to the table both from how you approach the content to how you write the content to just understanding what it’s gonna take to get the content from, you know, idea to execution because attorneys are busy or have their own way of working.
Julie:
Yeah. And I think, let’s see, how can I put this? It seems that the fact that Ann and I both are attorneys who have actually practiced law, it kind of gives us a bit of a leg up as far as trust building with other lawyers, Like yeah, I mean, lawyers are very particular about how they use language because they have to be. And so I think there’s a level of comfort working with another lawyer that, you know, we understand that there are ethical issues. We just, you know we speak the same language in a lot of ways. So yeah. And I, you know, I just, I know I feel really good about helping to make the attorney’s job even just a little bit easier if we can take, you know a little something off their plate, and that makes me feel really good to do.
Taryn:
Yeah, yeah. Well I’m gonna get to our next two questions which kind of go together. So I’m gonna ask them both at once. What do you see changing in the legal industry and what’s its impact? Ad related to that, you know, what should change but is taking longer to change, you know, than we’d like or than it should?
Julie:
Yeah, so just with my particular lens, what I see that has been changing a lot is, how attorneys reach clients. You know, many attorneys still and probably will always build their business on referrals and personal relationships. And also now it just is becoming more of a tool to do that More and more is, you know, online, use social media, your digital marketing efforts are like a really important way of reaching people, keeping in touch, establishing yourself as a thought leader. So, you know, that is something that lawyers didn’t do or didn’t feel like they had to do as much in the past. And I think especially with the pandemic, that really ramped up people’s awareness of like, Ooh! Here are some tools that I could be using that I’m not using, or this is something I really need to start doing. Could do more of.
Taryn:
Yeah. I agree and I think one of the things we’ve kind of see happen is, the shift from like, Ooh! Like I go to these events or I have these lunches and that’s how I stay in contact with people and I have a Rolodex. And those are the two things. Whereas now, I think we’re less likely to have a quote and quote Rolodex and more likely to say, Ooh! Well, I’ll just reach out to them on LinkedIn or whatever the platform is. Because that’s somewhere where you can always find people whatever, wherever they might be, if they’ve changed jobs if they’ve changed firms, that’s always there. But conversely, people are visiting that those sites or, you know, I mean even Google searches like sometimes I’ll just Google search somebody I’m looking for and either their law firm website will come up, or they’ll come up on LinkedIn. And therefore that’s brought a new level of marketing that needs to be done in those areas that is strictly supporting your in-person business development efforts.
Julie:
That’s a very good point. Yeah.
Taryn:
That’s even different. I mean there is digital marketing, but, to what you talked about like this is, you know, you went from having a business card that you put a lot of thought into to now having a very large business card that needs to be maintained and, you know, thought about a lot more than just a two by three piece of cardboard.
Julie:
Now, I think that’s a great point. And I think about that even, you know, of course now I have these eyes for websites that I didn’t always have but like if I’m thinking about hiring somebody or going to a restaurant, anything that I’m thinking about doing, you know, I’ll look at the website I Google, and then brings you to the website and it really does make an impression one way or another. And for lawyers and law firms, like, you know, it’s so, you know, it’s the new equivalent of having the like beautiful, impressive office space. Like you have to have a website that looks, you know modern and informative and you know, like you just, you wanna make a good first impression and that is, you know, a lot of times how you’re making that impression now.
Taryn:
Yes. Yeah, I love that analogy of the law firm lobby. I went through a couple law firm moves or a couple law firm remodels when I was in-house. And I know the importance of like the lobby being as amazing as it can be, we’re setting the tone for what you want people to think about your firm. And especially coming out of the pandemic like, I’m sure a lot of attorneys have clients, they don’t even come to their offices. They meet by Zoom or they meet by the phone. Cause we learned to work in different ways that we hadn’t previously. And so again, it’s your digital footprint that you’re putting out there that is, you know, the lobby, the impressive artwork, or the marble, or whatever your thing is.
Julie:
Yeah, yeah. I’m picturing the lobby of the firm that I worked at which was marble floors, and beautiful huge windows, and the artwork like the whole, you know, fresh flowers all the time. And yeah, it’s important to make that good first impression.
And the other thing, so your second question as far as what isn’t changing fast enough is related to this idea of creating, you know, creating more content which is that, you know, a lot of lawyers still don’t know that they don’t have to do all of this writing and content creation themselves. So I think because probably for a few reasons, one of them is that all lawyers are writers by definition to some extent. So I think a lot of lawyers and marketing departments have this idea like, oh no, the lawyers do all their own writing, but actually lawyers you know, at a law firm, the partner almost always gives an associate something to do a first draft of. And the judge almost always gives, you know, their clerk you know, an assignment to write the first draft of a decision and then they collaborate. So it’s still the judge’s decision.
I was a clerk, so I would look at everything and I would write up a decision, actually let me take that back. I would look at everything, I would talk it over with a judge to see like, you know, where do you stand? How do you want this to look? I would write it, she would look at it, you know, so it was her decision for sure. And her, you know, her analysis but I had the skills to write it all up in all the details. So my point being that, if judges can do that, and partners can do that, lawyers could certainly do more of that with their articles that they’re publishing and blog posts, and you know, these things that get their name out there, establish themselves as thought leaders.
There are writers who are skilled enough to do that kind of collaboration. And I just would love to see lawyers do it because most lawyers aren’t writing as much as they probably should be. And you know, they don’t have to do it all by themselves. So yeah, I think that’s something I hope, you know, that we’ll get some more of a better education. You know, like even when I started doing this job I was like, Ooh! People do this? you know, like I’ve been practicing law and I didn’t really know anybody who you know, helped lawyers with writing. So trying to educate people that we’re out here and you know, us and you know, there are others like us who you know, this is what we do, this is what we love to do.
Taryn:
Well, and I think whether it’s reviewing finance reports or getting out there and you know, doing meet and greets to develop business in-person or speaking at a conference or you know, sitting in on interviews for a new legal assistant like whatever it is, lawyers have a lot of, and especially partners, have a lot of requests on their time. Like those were all things that aren’t billable. And then you have your client load, which is billable but the expectation is that you’re participating in both. And I know that as a marketer, when you go to attorneys and you’re like, okay, and then we need you to create some content.
Yeah. And you know, they’re sitting there thinking it’s gonna take me five, six, 10 hours to write this blog post or whatever it is. And the tone has to be different than how I would write a brief. You know, that’s a lot of time that you’re taking away from other things. So I really love this concept of, you know, we’re here to help because we know what it takes to do it. We can do it more efficiently, we know it’s important to you and it’ll be your thoughts. But we also, you know, I always say the best marketing you do, or the best content you produce or you know, the form of content you do is the one that you will actually execute on. Not the one you’ll be like, Ooh! That’s too big of a hurdle for me to get over or, I can’t find that much time.
Like, the thing that is best for you to start with in your marketing is the thing that you will actually finish. And I say that as someone who, you know does a lot of different things too. And there are things that I naturally gravitate towards because it’s more my comfort zone or because, you know I have the time for that. Like I think we all do. And so, you know, I know working with somebody like Julie, makes it a lot easier to get it done because as a marketer, we ask a lot of people when it comes to creating content. Cause that’s what a lot of marketing is kind of being built around right now.
Well, we have one final question and that is, what advice do you have to share with our audience?
Julie:
So it’s funny, it’s similar to what you just said, Taryn, which is to start small. So you know, we’re now, it’s mid-November so my suggestion is to make one smart and one small achievable goal for, you know to get you to the end of this year. So one thing related to marketing that you can actually accomplish, you know by the end of the year. So, you know, and what helps me with goals is if I actually write it down and tell somebody I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna check back with you in a couple weeks to tell you what happened. That accountability is really, really important for me. And so a few ideas, you know, write one blog post, update your LinkedIn profile, update your attorney bio for the website. Even just like start lurking on a social media platform that you’ve been thinking about or that you’re a little bit involved in. Like just start scroll, if it’s, you know, Twitter or LinkedIn, whichever one that you’re thinking about. Maybe I could have more of a presence here. Just start, you know, reading and maybe commenting on other people’s things, you know, so just to have take one small step and kind of see how that feels. So that’s my thought for this year.
Taryn:
I do love that, start small. Which, yes is kind of where I was going. Like start with the thing, you know, you can do. And as I’ve said many times on here, like it’ll get easier, you’ll get more comfortable with it. The first one’s always the hardest but the second one’s easier. And by the time you get to the 10th one or whatever it is, you’re like, okay, I got this. Something else that I like, that I’m gonna add because I know you are really good at this, Julie, is, and this is something you could do to set up, you could do between now and the end of the year and it’ll set you up for next year is maybe take some time to like sit and to think on and get comfortable with, Like where are you an expert. And I know you can’t say expert if you’re a lawyer.
So I don’t mean to put that in your marketing but like what are the areas that you know best that you know better than anybody else, around that and kind of do, you know, a brain dump on that, I’ve worked through this with Julie so this is why I recommend it. And then when you go into actually creating content in 2023 which will be here in like six weeks, that’s crazy. But when you get to that point, you won’t be starting it from scratch. You’ll say, okay, I already have these ideas. And that can be, you know a lot of getting, you know, something down on paper. Staring at a blank screen is scary. I get that, Julie gets that. But if you have a topic in mind and you feel confident that you have something of value to share on, that makes it a lot easier to start writing or making a video or writing a social media post, whatever it is.
Julie:
Yeah, absolutely.
Taryn:
For all of the things Julie referenced and more, we have resources on our website to help with all of this if you are ready to get started. So go ahead, check out our resources section. Julie has personally authored or put up several things there too. So you can review those as well. Well Julie, thank you for being on News + Views + To Dos.
I’m glad that we finally got to do this since we’ve been talking about it for so long and really dig deep into content which is the basis of a lot of the marketing that we do.
Julie:
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Taryn:
And thank you to everyone who tuned into this News + Views + To Dos. Check back, actually next Friday no, the following Friday after this is a podcast. So we will not have a livestream but we’ll have our podcast and you can get all of our podcasts as well as our News + Views + To Dos, Ask Me Anything, and Three Things, content as a podcast. So follow LISI on either LinkedIn or on your favorite podcast platforms to get those delivered to you. Thanks everybody and have a great day.