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Why intellectual property lawyers should blog about how to monetize IP

Intellectual property lawyers should blog about strategies for clients to monetize their IP – as law firm clients are increasingly looking for legal counsel that will be a conduit to business success.

Clients expect lawyers to be a conduit to business success

A recent article in Forbes magazine by legal services sector management consultant Mark Cohen describes an emerging legal market where business clients increasingly expect lawyers to be a conduit to business success.

As Cohen explains, business leaders are encouraging (or sometimes demanding) that lawyers “operate proactively, predictively, quickly, efficiently, collaboratively, and in data-backed fashion. The expectation is that the legal function will morph from self-contained cost center to collaborative catalyst for enterprise and customer value creation.”

Notably, as Cohen details, 97% of business leaders want their lawyer’s success metrics to be aligned with their business goals. And 74% of business leaders say it is important or extremely important for lawyers to create revenue and new market opportunities.

Where IP lawyers can be a conduit to business success

IP monetization is where intellectual property (IP) is harnessed to generate revenue. As IP law firm Maier & Maier, PLLC has explained: “The next great corporate challenge in the information age is figuring out how to unlock the hidden power of Intellectual Property, most notably with patents. ” And as upcounsel details, this monetization is complex and requires the special skills which IP lawyers possess.

IP assets are frequently developed (via primary and supplementary monetization) by corporate management teams seeking to generate greater profitability. As deal lawyer Art Mertes has detailed in Entrepreneur magazine: “Accretion of IP value is the key element to supporting overall enterprise value. ” Frequently, IP assets can become biproducts of a company’s core business activities, capable of generating multiple revenue streams. Once regarded as simply tools providing rights for exclusion, patents are increasingly significant as intangible assets.

Historically focused on industry sectors including e-commerce, high-tech, and pharmaceuticals, IP monetization is now more important in other industries. Many IP owners are not knowledgeable about how it can be monetized. This presents an opportunity for IP lawyers to meet the needs of clients where they most wish to be assisted.

IP monetization-focused blogging will help law firms generate more clients

As the blog of legal technology company Clio has detailed (citing an American Bar Association study), 60% of law firms with more than 100 lawyers maintain blogs – and 37% of all law firms do. Notably, 34% of firms with blogs report that they have been signed by new clients because of their blogging. Clio also cites Kevin O’Keefe, CEO of LexBlog, who explains that blogs build law firm authority and reputation. But to stand out among a sea of blogs, he advises firms to focus their blogging on specific legal niches. Importantly, he also explains that firms should not use their blog as a megaphone to shout the merits of their firm. Instead, law blogs should provide useful information that is enjoyable to read.

Lawyers who focus on niche blogging areas like IP monetization strategy, therefore, can distinguish themselves among their competitors with an insightful and consistent blogging initiative. Here, lawyers can analyze the market to determine what topical IP monetization issues or opportunities are most relevant to clients — and where their practice niche can be of help in the monetization process.

I have extensive experience in helping law firms establish and maintain niche blogging initiatives, including those focused on intellectual property monetization. If you would like to discuss how I might help you establish or maintain a niche legal blogging initiative around IP, please contact me.

Why law blogs should focus on helping clients achieve revenue and new markets

Business clients want their lawyers to help facilitate commercial objectives

As Cohen explains, lawyers’ latent value is extracted when they cease to operate in isolation and instead align with their business clients. Here, he notes, is where ultimately lawyers will collaborate with and positively impact numerous units within client businesses – detecting, deterring, mitigating and accelerating solutions to business challenges while also capturing opportunities. Lawyers will, therefore, be a “proactive, positive force in the enterprise, not a reactive, “department of no.””

Lawyers should reorient around client business goals facilitation

Lawyers providing services to business should seek to closely align their services offer with helping make their clients’ businesses more competitive and profitable. For example, IP lawyers can seek opportunities to monetize client IP portfolios, corporate lawyers can seek to be a conduit to M&A opportunities (not just a transaction advisor), government lawyers can seek to help clients secure government contracts, litigation lawyers can seek to help clients avoid litigation risk before conflicts arise.

In addition to reorienting services offers to help facilitate client commercial objectives, lawyers should also seek to establish a thought leadership position around this expertise in each legal specialism where they are deploying this posture. A well thought out blog and a considered business development initiative around engaging the business units around potential client businesses will see firms becoming trusted partners for business growth.

I help lawyers and law firms establish and maintain blogging initiatives which highlight their ability to facilitate commercial opportunities for clients. If you would like to learn more, please contact me.

How many blogposts should lawyers publish every month?

Consistent blogging is an important anchor for lawyers seeking to maximize their marketing and business development potential. Notably, B2B marketers that use blogs receive 55% more website visitors, 97% more links from other sites, and 67% more leads than those who don’t. And 34% of law firms with blogs report that they have been signed by new clients because of their blogging.

Consistency a challenge to law firm blogging efforts

While blogging can be time consuming, it is utilized by leading law firms to build a strong industry reputation while also generating more new clients leads. Key to blogging success, however, is consistency. But because many lawyers are busy, producing regular blogposts is challenging for many law firms.

2-4 posts a month is a minimum to achieve good search engine rankings

In preparing this blogpost, I reviewed the suggestions of several industry experts to seek to identify how many posts lawyers should publish every month. The recommendations range from a minimum of 2 to 4 posts per month. I would suggest this total should apply to small law firms or practice groups within large law firms. Why 2 to 4? Because Google and other search engines need to see regular amounts of good content to rank a blog as a source of expert information. I would also suggest that high quality content that uniquely addresses client concerns is as important a criterion for how much to publish as search engine ranking is. So, seek to be a genuine legal thought leader in each specialism your firm focuses on to generate greater client leads and recognition – above and beyond ranking in search results.

As your firm continues to regularly publish blogposts month-to-month, your firm will rank higher and higher in search results for the legal specialisms your ideal clients are searching for online. At the same time, your blog will also be producing more inquiries from potential clients and referral sources. And your blogposts can also be proactively utilized by lawyers and firm business development professionals to generate conversations with potential clients and referral sources – not solely serve as an inbound marketing tool.

Outsource legal writing and blogging to achieve your publishing objectives

Firms and practice groups should see 2-4 blogposts per month as the bare minimum publishing goal — and outsource blogging to an expert in legal writing and publishing for legal marketing and business development purposes. An expert legal blogger will be in a position to also help you determine ideal blogpost topics and publishing frequency based on firm or practice group business development goals, create a publishing calendar, operate the law blog, utilize the firms social media profiles to promote the blog content, and in some cases liaise with legal media around covering subjects of interest to their readers that intersect with your blogging focus.

Mission critical law blogs require professional support to achieve maximum success

To achieve the client development goals your firm or practice group has — a blog is now mission critical. Therefore, the services of a professional legal blogger are a wise investment to ensure your law blog publishes consistent, client-focused quality content. I help law firms and legal practice groups establish and maintain consistent blogging initiatives that generate new client inquiries. For more information about how I might help you maintain your law blog, please contact me.

Niche legal blogging opportunity in new US policy on foreign investment

A recent development in US policy related to outbound foreign investment is a subject ideal for specialist lawyers to blog about. As I have detailed previously, blogging about niche subjects is regarded by experts as important to lawyers who wish to become thought leaders in their area of legal specialty.

This new development is a recent Biden administration decision to release an executive order establishing an outbound investment screening mechanism. The executive order and its implications were recently detailed by Emily Benson and Margot Putnam of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

A March 2023 joint statement from US President Biden and European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reflects the concerns inspiring the new US executive order. In that statement, Biden and von der Leyen stated they “have a common interest in preventing our companies’ capital, expertise, and knowledge from fueling technological advances that will enhance the military and intelligence capabilities of our strategic rivals, including through outbound investment.”

This executive order has generated concerns over how US private sector entities will be impacted over the definition of the term investment, how screening mechanisms will operate, and how compliance will be conducted.

As US foreign investment is enormous and impacts numerous foreign jurisdictions, this new policy and its various mechanisms provide much for the private sector to be concerned about – and therefore is an ideal subject for law firms that assist US foreign investors. Blogging topics related to this subject could involve a variety of practice specialisms and industry sector practice groups. It therefore provides several potential client development opportunities.

This is an excellent example of where lawyers who focus on niche blogging areas can distinguish themselves among their competitors. Lawyers in any practice specialism can do this sort of analysis of the news to determine what topical issues are most relevant to clients and where their practice niche can be of help – with an aim to creating content to address the needs of those potential clients.

If you would like to discuss how I might help you establish or maintain a niche legal blogging initiative, please contact me.

Why law firms should coordinate business development and blogging

Law firms can and should coordinate their business development and blogging initiatives to generate more clients. Many law firms often silo these functions while focusing primarily on content marketing to build brand awareness and generate inbound inquiries — and less on business development to find and secure new client engagements.

Notably, 87% of marketers believe alignment between sales and marketing is important for business growth. An article in NYTLicensing provides some interesting observations about the importance of coordinating business development and marketing and how it can be done. As the article details, a significant percentage of the global adult population (and by extension, lawyers) use the internet regularly. Important for lawyers to know is — 55% of decision makers use content to vet future partners and vendors — and 47% have shared contact details in exchange for thought leadership.

Blogging for law firms is important because the general counsel and other purchasers of legal services often search the internet before making decisions about who to work with on matters where they may need to make an external legal spend. Therefore, a widely read blog with useful content becomes important for firms to distinguish themselves amid a sea of competitors. Too, content can help create knowledge of your firm’s brand and expertise — for when business development initiatives contact your key audiences.

And business development is equally important because it serves as the engine which organizes and pushes forward efforts to engage specific potential clients around representation and renumeration. Without well-functioning business development, law firms will realize fewer new client engagements. Many of the functions and goals of blogging and business development overlap. Combining these efforts, therefore, should be a high priority for law firms.

Effectively coordinate legal business development and blogging

To effectively coordinate between marking and business development, firms should identify what content business development would like to see produced by the content team – which they believe will not only attract inbound inquiries, but which also will be used by business development in outbound initiatives. Firms should ensure they also develop an editorial calendar that commits the content team to dedicating regular resources to topics identified as important by business development. Content teams will already be producing content about partner hires, events, and other PR related matters. So, this extension into coordinating with business development will not be disruptive to marketing time or resources. And it will also help tie content teams into participation in business development return on investment (ROI) gains.

With these initiatives in place, content marketing and business development will be able to work together more effectively and generate more client leads and more client signs. I have specialized in both legal business development and blogging for law firms for most of my career. Based on my experience, I understand how to effectively combine business development and blogging for the benefit of lawyers and their law firms.

If you would like to discuss how I might help your firm integrate business development and blogging effectively, please contact me.

Why law firms should promote their blogposts after publication

The promotion of blogposts after publication is important for law firms so they can maximize their ability to generate new clients and build more brand awareness. Blogposts by Yelena Petic on Vez Digital blog and Josh Slone on ContentScale blog provide very helpful information about how firms might promote blogposts to generate more return on investment from blogging. I have utilized some of the information in those posts while compiling the following list of how to promote blogposts:

Utilize a good blogging platform

Utilizing a blogging platform that is designed to host and support blogs is essential to the success of a law firm blog. You should ensure the blog is capable of loading quickly on desktop or mobile. Further, the design of the site should make it easy to read.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

While law firms should prioritize content of high relevance to key audiences, search engine optimization (SEO) is something that can help a blog appear higher in internet search results. Therefore, it’s wise to use keywords in titles and meta descriptions to help your blog rank higher.

Proofread after publishing

Blogging is often conducted under tight deadlines, so it is important to double check the text for mistakes after publishing. Also make sure there is a call to action in each post. Hoping a reader will contact you? Place a contact form somewhere in the post.

Post to social media

After publishing each blogpost, post those articles to your active social media profiles and relevant social media groups. Law firms should not only maintain relevant social media profiles – they should engage with followers and build relationships on these profiles and in these groups as well.

Leverage relationships with industry influencers

Law firms should build relationships with industry influencers who may be more inclined to share your blogposts when published. These influencer relationships can and should include guest posting, joint events, and more. By doing this, law firms can leverage the networks of influencers they work with to amplify the reach of their blogposts and blog.

Email posts to subscribers

Email subscribers are usually the most interested in your content and your services – and therefore should be the first to receive your blogposts when published. Most blogging platforms have a built-in subscriber email distribution function. Make sure to cultivate subscribers by prominently placing a subscription sign up form on your blog.

Build internal and external links to your posts

Link building is an effective way to help search engines know that your blog is credible and should rank highly. You can, for example, create links from popular older posts to new posts to help increase the likelihood they will rank more highly in search results. Also, by creating superb content others will cite it and link to it, which will also help you in search results.

Repurpose or syndicate blog content

Repurposing content is an excellent way to save time and increase the reach of your posts, even long after they have been initially published. For example, utilizing blog content as scripts for video and audio, or in ebooks, or by creating excerpts from the posts for new social media channels or groups you’ve recently discovered – or sending to new potential clients as a part of your business development efforts.

Utilize blogposts in the business development process

One of the best uses for blogposts is to contact potential clients and invite those potential clients to discuss how you may be able to help them – while including a link to a post you have written with them in mind. A more advanced way to produce blogposts is to publish about specific needs specific clients may have – and have that sort of publishing serve as the primary anchor guiding your content creation.

Turn your blog into a lead generator

These are just some of the things law firms can do to promote blogposts in anticipation of publishing and after publishing. By doing this a blogger can become an active lead generator for the firm they blog for.

If you would like to discuss how I can help your law firm establish and/or maintain a law blog, please contact me.

Consistency essential to the success of law firm blogs

Law firms can build more awareness of their firms, practice specialisms and specialist attorneys by maintaining a consistent updated blog. And that increased awareness is likely to result in more potential client inquiries and more new client engagements.

Blogs help law firms generate more clients

Law firms often face challenges when trying to blog consistently

One crucial element of successful blogging, according to the Clio blogpost, is consistency. In my experience of helping law firms establish and maintain law blogs — consistency is the greatest challenge law firms face in maintaining a blog. I’ve seen many law firm blogs that are not updated regularly. And the branded social media profiles firms use to amplify their blog content are also on too many occasions inactive or abandoned. This is a huge error by law firms — and one which can be corrected by working with a professional writer, editor and blogger with solid experience in legal services blogging, social media, and business development.

What law firms lose when they don’t regularly update their blogs

Looking more closely at what law firms lose by not blogging consistently – (something AIContentfy has blogged about) is instructive: The trust they have built with their readers, the expanded brand awareness that a blog delivers, the increased ability to be found in internet search results, the additional readers attracted by regular content, and the relevance of the firm as a thought leader with the general counsel, other law firms, and legal media. These are major losses which can and should be avoided by firms with a serious interest in generating new business.

Law firms are understandably challenged for time in efforts to maintain a blog consistently. Law firms should therefore seriously consider working with a professional legal services sector-focused writer and blogger to help them achieve those goals.

For more information about how your firm can work with me to help you maintain a consistently updated law blog, please contact me.