Look-future

The results of the new Legal Technology Service Providers Use of Content and Social Media Marketing Survey are in, and they're disappointing. But perhaps they're not entirely surprising.

Like many of the law firms they serve, legal tech marketers are pumping out more and more content—but too many are doing it without a documented content strategy to guide their efforts. Whether you're a law firm trying to reach general counsel or a legal tech provider trying to get in front of law firm purchasers, producing content in this scattershot manner just won't cut it in an era of information overload.

We're not saying it's time to hang our heads. This is a moment that should be viewed as a tremendous opportunity. Put simply, organizations have an opportunity to build and strengthen relationships with key audiences by creating relevant, useful content that provides value to those audiences. But to break through all the noise, they'll need documented content strategies that keep their audiences top of mind and help their content find its way into those audiences' hands.

Similar Trends

Greentarget conducted the survey of legal tech respondents in early 2018. The majority said winning new business was their top content-marketing goal, followed by building new website traffic and lead generation (both of which could be seen as avenues toward business development). And 94 percent of those respondents said they expect to produce more content this year than in 2017.

But just 50 percent of respondents said they had a documented content strategy, while 31 percent said they had one that wasn't documented and 13 percent said they planned to create one in the next 12 months. In other words, organizations know that content marketing can bring in new business, and they're increasing their efforts. But they aren't carefully planning its creation or distribution – meaning their hard work might not provide the returns they're hoping for.

This largely reflects what we found last year in Greentarget's State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey. Eighty-one percent of law firm marketers said they would create more content, but just 26 percent said they had documented content strategies to guide them. Meanwhile, 96 percent of in-house counsel—law firms' target audiences—told us that information overload was a problem.

Of course, it's almost certain that those holding the purse strings inside law firms feel just as bombarded by all the content flying at them each day.

Budget Problems

Beyond the greater concerns about strategy, content marketing budgets simply aren't big enough among legal tech marketers, particularly when viewed against the nearly universal intention to churn out more content this year.

About two-thirds of the respondents to the legal tech survey said they spend no more than 20 percent of their marketing budgets on content. A recent Content Marketing Institute Study found that, on average, B2B marketers spend 29 percent of their budgets on content. And that's arguably a little low. In this day and age, about a third of B2B marketing budgets should be directed toward content.

Interestingly, legal tech marketers appear to be getting bigger content budget increases this year than B2B marketers generally. Our survey found that 59 percent of legal tech marketers got a budget bump, compared with 39 percent of CMI members.

Effectively Delivering Content

Email and LinkedIn were the top distribution sources among legal tech marketers. Survey respondents were most likely to describe email as very valuable, but LinkedIn was most likely to be described as very valuable or somewhat valuable. Almost no respondents described LinkedIn as having no value—though 6 percent used that description for email, possibly because spam filters or concerns over timing create the risk that some emails will never be seen.

Traditional media, even in the era of so-called “fake news,” still has its fans among legal tech marketers, with 78 percent calling sources like The Wall Street Journal and The Economist as very or somewhat valuable (slightly ahead of blogs at 72 percent). This echoes other surveys and is perhaps a sign that key decision makers still value reputation and trustworthiness, despite the withering criticism directed at mainstream media in recent years.

Regardless of how content marketing finds its way to decision makers, no one seems to argue about its potential. One legal tech respondent shared an anecdote that encapsulates content's potential as a revenue driver:

“We had a partner at an Am Law firm call us and ask for a demo that led to the firm subscribing to our service,” the respondent said. “Previously, the CMO had not responded to our calls.”

 

Steve DiMattia is a Senior Vice President in the New York Office of Greentarget, a strategic public relations firm focused exclusively on business-to-business organizations. He works closely with clients in the legal, financial services and tech industries.