Public Relations For Law Firms - 5 Tips For a Successful PR Strategy

Law firms that lack a sound public relations strategy are missing valuable opportunities to represent clients who are enmeshed in the most important and impactful legal issues of the day. To secure such clients effectively, smart law firms know how to engage and leverage the media effectively.

The most effective public relations strategies for law firms are founded upon a keen understanding of the issues. They entail the effective positioning of the law firm as a credible resource offering valuable insights into the issues and problems their clients face.
Here are 5 tips for conducting effective and efficient public relations for law firms:

Tip #1: Know your audience: It is essential that law firms identify the key spheres of referrals, relationships and prospective clients in their field of specialty. Each time the firm initiates a media outreach campaign, it should be sculpted to speak directly to one of a set of clearly-defined target client segments. The most commanding strategies are those that seek to inform audiences while highlighting key issues that personally and directly affect those target clients.

Tip #2: Intersect your firm's expertise with real pain points: Showcasing your firm's true talents and specialties entails first understanding the real pain points of your target client segment. Fostering a relationship with clients that is conducive to trust and loyalty increases the likelihood that they will approach you in a reliable, confident manner. If you are unclear as to which issues to specifically address with your target client group, ask yourself: what is an issue or cluster of related issues that are important to lives of my target client segment? How might the resolution of these issues increase their upside (e.g., income, happiness, peace of mind) or decrease their downside (e.g., expenses, stress, health problems, etc.)?

Tip #3: Understand current trends: Trend commentary is a frequently-employed method for generating visibility and increasing exposure for your firm. To generate trend commentary, PR practitioners collaborate with executives to identify key thought leadership platforms that traverse both current business trends and the law firm principals' own expertise. The platforms are then shaped to cater to the target segment and then pitched to the media.

Tip #4: Represent yourself to the media as a resource offering substantial, well-articulated insight: The final secret to success in media placements is approaching a topic with an insightful, well-articulated perspective. It is important to reach out to the right reporter(s) with relevant information. The main goal here is maximum reach and clarity, which can only be possible with effective and lucid channels of communication. The law firm's presentation must be eloquent, refined and precise. This is crucial in terms of the portrayal of the firm's image vis-à-vis the media.

Tip #5: Author expert articles: Another facet of a thought-leadership campaign is the authoring of in-depth, by-lined, expert articles. These articles, often written in partnership with public relations professionals, have the power to go into specific details that highlight trends, problems and solutions. Expert articles can be developed for specific industry trade segments or for general business magazines. In some cases, they are developed to articulate detailed trends to other expert audiences. Articles and other literature often receive coverage in local publications such as newspapers, journals and newsletters, which in turn can create a potential gateway to national and possibly international exposure.

When launching a PR campaign for your law firm, the end game involves knowing your audience, identifying their pain points, and effectively positioning your firm as a thought leader who holds a substantive, insightful position on the issue or topic.

A Brief Explanation of Public Relations

Public Relations, also known as PR, or community relations, is a difficult topic to define. Especially in recent years the need for "good PR" has become a priority. Most major universities offer both upper and lower level classes in PR with topics ranging from campaigns to writing. But what really is Public Relations and what does it do?

 Most broadly, PR is all about establishing and maintaining public image. Public Image is how the public views and reacts to person, product or idea. Public image is especially important for various groups from commercial enterprises to non-profit groups, persons of high-profile, educational institutions, governments, countries, and even athletic teams. One definition of  PR is: the management of communication between the these groups and the public (also known as stakeholders).  The focus is always  towards the desired public. Defining where PR comes from and what it does can help explain its role.

The history of PR is quite extensive but here is only a brief selection. The most generally regarded founder of Public Relations was Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who is most famous for an event in 1929. As part of one of the first PR campaigns named the " Torches of Liberty Contingent", Bernays, secretly employed by the American Tobacco Company, motivated women to march in the New York City Easter Day Parade smoking. This destroyed the previous social taboo of female smokers, meant a significant payment for Bernays and a favorable shift in public opinion to cigarette smoking under the guise of gender equality. One of the first examples of PR with positive commercial consequences for the tobacco industry.

To understand Public Relations you also need to understand its goals. PR goals can be separated into four groups:

1) Create; Maintain; and Defend reputation

2) Enhance status

3) Present a Positive Image

4) Create Good Will (for the group, item or idea)

Another important distinction of Public Relation is that it is different from advertising. Specifically because PR is usually expressed by a third-party some results are in free but uncontrolled exposure, credibility, and unpredictability of cost and effectiveness. PR can be much more difficult and time-consuming that regular advertising.

To carry out its goals, those in the PR industry have a diverse tool box and interesting procedures. They include   Press Releases, in the form of newsletters, reports, brochures. Social Media Outlets like blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. Press Kits that include various kinds  promotional material. Other tools are publicity stunts, talk show circuit, speeches, visits and "AstroTurfing".

Among the Procedures that PR use are:

1) Identifying all relevant factors

2) Establishing goals

3) Outline tactics

4) Interaction with the desired public

5) Feedback from the public

6) Modify and adapt as necessary

One distinct aspect of Public Relation is "spin". Spin refers to the action of portraying an event through a lens of bias. This means selective representation in the amount and type of information presented to the public. The people who undertake this task are known as "spin doctors" and they use everything from cherry picking to euphemisms to non-denial as their techniques.

Public Relations is further divided into several sub-categories:

Financial - involves current as well as  potential investor and analysts

Consumer/lifestyle - to educate and build relationship with current or future consumers

Crisis - to deal with accidents, disasters, mistakes or wrongdoing

Industry - to promote relationships within industry whether products or for employees

Government - to deal with the public view in all situations

Through this entire process, Public Relations can and does work. The results can be free good publicity and that leads into increased interest and increased exposure, sales and image. So don't take PR for granted as a powerful tool to create or destroy.

Let Public Relations turn into a powerful Advertising tool for you.

Public Relations - Fundamentals of PR

Public relations, commonly defined as the practice of managing communications between a business and their target audience- usually existing or potential customers. If you are a business owner, proactive PR is fundamental. It is a must. You need to set your messages and you need to get them out there.

The purpose of this article is to share with you the fundamentals of PR- what you need to do as part of your public relations activities and also what you need to think about.

You need to set goals- You need to know what you want to achieve. Public relations should not be considered an afterthought. It is an integral aspect of any and all businesses and should be a part of your day-to-day routines. As it needs to be part of your everyday activities, you need to set specific goals. You should have short-term goals and long-term goals.

You need to work out how to achieve those goals- Once you have set your public relations goals, then you can think about how you are going to achieve these goals. Proactive public relations tactics need to be thought out. Your audience is not going to actively seek you out but you need to also make sure that you are not too pushy and spammy with your sales approaches.

You need to work out how you are going to measure the success of your goal setting- When you set your goals and choose your tactics, you need to make sure that you can measure and assess the results. You need to make sure that you can assess the relative success or failure of what you are doing. Website stats, phone calls, Facebook fans, Twitter RT's and percentage increase in sales represent only a fraction of the possible measurement tools you can use to measure the relative success or failure of your goals and the tactics that you are using.

You need to work out how you are going to differentiate yourself from your competitors- You need to make sure that your goals and tactics effectively differentiate your business from the business of your competitors. Proactive public relations means developing your own message, framing your own business and how it is different, and then effectively presenting those messages.

You need to know what you are capable of- You need to know what PR activities you, and your staff are capable of, and then you need to decide whether there are other PR tactics you need to implement and whether you should outsource some of this work.

You need to do it- It needs to be reinforced again. Proactive PR is something that needs to be implemented every day in your business.

You need to make sure you follow the fundamentals or PR that I have outlined in this article if you want to grow your business. Do yourself a favour and get started today.

Public Relations Defined

The definition of public relations frequently depends upon who is using the term. For agencies and practitioners, it is a respected profession and management function. For its detractors, PR is a means for applying a gloss or otherwise polishing something that is otherwise objectionable.

PR is frequently interchanged incorrectly with terms such as "spin" and "publicity." And the recently popular term "marketing public relations" adds to the confusion.

Here are three widely accepted definitions

o From the textbook Effective Public Relations authored by Scott Cutlip, Allen Center and Glen Broom: Public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends.

o From PR News: Public relations is the management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or an organization with the public interest, and then plans and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.

o From the PR Society of America (PRSA): PR helps an organization and its publics to adapt mutually to each other. The term "publics" recognizes the need to understand the attitudes and values of and to develop effective relationships with many different stakeholders such as employees, members, customers, local communities, shareholders other institutions and society at large

The common factor in these definitions is the two-way nature of the relationship. PR calls for equal amounts of listening as well as talking.

Furthermore, as a management function it includes:

o Anticipating, analyzing and interpreting public opinion, attitudes and issues that might impact an organization's operations and plans positively or negatively.

o Counseling management regarding policy decisions, courses of action and communications with an eye toward public ramifications and the organization's social or citizenship responsibilities.

o Continually researching, conducting and evaluating programs designed to achieve the public's informed understanding of an organization's aims.

o Planning and implementing an organization's efforts to influence public policy. Specifically: establishing objectives, budgeting, recruiting and training staff and developing facilities -- essentially the management of all resources necessary to achieve an organizations PR objectives.

The primary quality of PR is that it is based on a reciprocal relationship -- a two-way street -- between an organization and its many publics.

If you are not talking and listening to your publics and responding accordingly to the benefit of both, you are not practicing public relations.