TECHNOLOGY TIPS FOR A COMPETITIVE EDGE: Leverage technology to build brands, increase efficiency.

• Author: McClead, Ryan

Many articles can be found espousing the advancements firms have made in recent years to embrace VN. technology to improve their practices. One such clickbait article published earlier this year listed four ways law firms are using technology for exposure and efficiency.

There is nothing technically wrong with the four ways that the author listed:

* Becoming a resource on social networks

* Blogging about important topics

* Launching law firm apps

* Digitizing documents and using online libraries

However, they are they are banal, obvious and outdated. Instead, we need to be talking about the ways law firms are ACTUALLY using technology for exposure and efficiency.

There is probably technology your firms already have that can be used for marketing, as well as creating amazing legal products and services. Your firms (and your careers) will skyrocket if you can find ways to help capitalize on that technology to bring money in the door, make lawyers more efficient, and builds your brand.

Here are three ways legal marketers can leverage the technologies available today to gain a competitive advantage.

Stop emailing and social spamming clients. Build tools (preferably ones that clients actually want/need and will pay for).

Productization and marketing are tied together in every other industry--why so rarely in legal?

Here's the idea--go beyond e-newsletters and offer services to your prospects and clients. They might be a full subscription service or they might be marketing teasers.

Norton Rose Fulbright built a product called ContractorCheck to check employee status compliance and successfully leveraged it as a marketing tool.

Available on the website, ContractorCheck allows clients to run a quick check of whether a worker should likely be classified as an employee or an independent contractor. The resulting analysis and disclaimer are emailed to the contact. This email includes relevant information as well as the names of NRF lawyers to contact for more information. ContractorCheck is a marketing tool, but one that is actually quite useful and provides value beyond simply touting the services of the organization.

If your firm is planning to build or has built a legal service product of any kind, make sure you are part of the conversation. Think about how a simple version or a subset of the product can be made available for free to either drive sales of the product itself, or in conjunction with more a traditional marketing campaign, to develop...