CSHWorkersComp.com is a microsite dedicated to providing North Carolina employers and their insurance companies with the tools and information they need to do their jobs more effectively. This site was one of the two website projects I spearheaded while in my former position as in-house marketing director for Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog.
As we approached the launch of the site in November 2014, we wanted to create memorable, sharable content that users would share with others within and outside of their companies. While law firms had already jumped into content marketing with newsletters and blog posts, we wanted to deliver something different to the clients of CSH Law.
Our very first piece of visual content was the PPD Ratings Reference Guide in the image above. As CSH Law Partner Robin Terry and I announced the launch of the Microsite during our 2014 Fall Seminar, we sent an email to attendees with this infographic included. Clients were impressed and we developed several more infographics and pieces of visual content over the course of the next year.
Why Visual Content is Important
Visual content leads to more views and shares than publishing the same boring blog posts over and over again. In a traditional industry like legal, it can help you stand out in a big way from your competitors.
- According to HubSpot, Infographics are liked and shared on social media 3X more than other any other type of content.
- 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. With the help of visual images, readers have a higher probability of remembering your post than with simple text.
The goal is to go above and beyond in delivering a memorable online experience to your clients and prospective clients, while providing valuable information. By creating relevant and remarkable content, you encourage others to share your content for you, whether it be via social media or email. This is called “earned media” and it’s free.
One such piece of memorable content (thumbnail below) we worked on at CSH Law was the “Guide to NCIC Forms for Employers/Carriers/Administrators,” authored by CSH Law Workers’ Compensation Partner, Jennifer Morris Jones. From the link, you can see that this particular piece of content is gated – users must trade their email to download the Guide from the site. As visitors download the content, Jennifer was able to see the people and companies who were interested in the information she provided, and the Workers’ Compensation Practice Group had the opportunity to build their email list for their monthly “E-Alerts.”
Infographics and Other Visual Content: Also Helpful for In Person Opportunities
While the initial purpose of creating the visual content was to delight clients and promote sharing, we quickly realized another important benefit for law firms. People still love paper. We ended up printing the majority of the Infographics on UV paper to make them more durable. (UV coating is also considerably less expensive than laminating.) Lawyers took them on client visits and continuing education seminars, and sent them via post in proposals, meeting follow ups, or as a “reason to touch base” with former clients they had not seen in a while. As we attended conferences in 2015 to promote the Microsite, we had eye-catching and helpful handouts that visitors could take back to their offices and refer to over and over again.
Which brings me to another added bonus. For the lawyers in your firm who take time to create visual content (I’ve explained our basic process below,) they can have their name picture and contact information somewhere on the page. (See the footer for Jennifer’s Form Guide below.) So as clients and prospective clients refer to your content time and time again, they will know who to reach out to when a question arises that the content cannot answer. The attorney who invests in creating valuable content is building trust and credibility with prospective clients that he or she hasn’t even met.
Creating Visual Content in the Law Firm Environment
So how do you get it done? Chances are, your firm has a ton of content that could be “repurposed” in the form of an infographic or other visual piece. It’s more than likely hiding in a dense, 40 slide PowerPoint or 10 page article. I worked with Jennifer and other attorneys to “translate” this more dense content and make it consumable for the web, and our clients. I would review the PowerPoint, or whatever else the attorney had available, meet with him or her, and then sketch out a rough wireframe of the content and then turn it over to the designer. At CSH Law, we were fortunate to have Katie Bagwell, a very talented graphic designer, on staff in the marketing department.
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What are your content marketing goals for this year? How could you capture the attention of prospective clients time and time again with valuable charts, graphs, and other visuals?
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