Ward and Smith's Chief Marketing Officer, Laura Hudson, recently shared her expertise on successful content marketing strategies during a Zoom session with JD Supra clients.
Drawing from over a decade of experience, Laura emphasized the importance of a client-centric approach in all marketing and business development activities.
Key Insights from Laura Hudson
In her discussion, Laura highlighted the valuable practice of writing as though speaking to a single client. This approach, she noted, ensures that the content remains relevant and valuable to the reader.
In our Zoom session, Laura recounted the success of one of her attorneys who writes about creditors rights and “has developed a specific voice and a real following. He can make creditor's rights content entertaining, which is a truly rare skill!”
When asked about his success with content, it quickly becomes clear that this is more than just about being entertaining (although, I suspect that helps!). Laura quoted her attorney as saying: “People call pretty regularly. We've gotten client work out of it. We always get some comments, emails from clients, from contacts, and it shows we are thinking about things our clients need to think about. Definitely feel it is time well spent.”
Leveling the Playing Field
Laura underscored the strategic importance of thought leadership for mid-sized and small firms.
“Marketing our thought leadership is a key strategy for us. We can’t compete in terms of advertising —we’re not advertising in airports— and we don’t have a PR agency. What we have, in abundance, is experience that we can demonstrate, showing how we think about solving our clients’ problems. We write about topics that help our clients.
Deliver Your Insights to Your Readers
Ward and Smith has found significant success in delivering their insights through JD Supra, which Laura described as an invaluable marketing partner.
JD Supra is one of three content extension services we use, and the one that gets us the highest number of reads, year in and year out. We track every service on a monthly basis, and have since mid-2016, so I can say that with the authority of the data through the end of April! JD Supra is an important marketing partner for us, and I know I’ve told you that in private, Paul, but want to say in public, too. Your service is invaluable! I appreciate what you do for us each day!”
In addition to providing timely and relevant content, Laura also discussed the impact of themed content on their editorial calendar. For example, their February theme "Love and Relationships in Law" saw a 15% increase in organic traffic from January to March.
Click here to get more insights from Laura, and to read part I of this discussion.
