Content Marketing Today

Powerful Brand Built by Great Content Marketing from UK Law Firm, Pinsent Masons

Dramatic and tangible return delivered on relatively small content marketing investment

If you thought all British law firms were stodgy and old-fashioned, you haven’t yet encountered Pinsent Masons.  Their name might be old-fashioned but their marketing sure isn’t. In fact, they have been doing online and print content marketing for eight years.  And, it has paid off measurably.

Their content rich website, Out-Law.com, provides a wealth of timely and useful content for its current and prospective clients. In addition, they produce a semi annual print publication also called Out-Law.  Neither information product is the kind of very traditional marketing you would expect from a venerable global law firm. But that’s because they understood from the beginning that great content was fundamental to building a great brand.

Back in the year 2000, before the Dotcom implosion, this law firm and many of its peers in the UK launched themselves onto the Internet.  Most of the others dropped by the wayside or contented themselves with brochure style websites.  

The common thread of the also rans was that they failed to provide relevant content. Because they relied on overworked lawyers to provide the content, they lacked the single-minded focus required to drive a successful content marketing strategy.  After all, when your responsibility is to generate billable hours, spending time writing articles for a website just doesn’t make much sense. 

Pinsent Masons took a much different tack.  From the beginning, they made a number of very smart decisions that have been effectively executed by their content marketing team. 

• They considered the web to be so important that they created a dedicated team to produce their content.  Although they have a thousand lawyers, they realized that only a dedicated content team made sense–if they really wanted quality content.  So, in May 2000, they hired Struan Robertson, who is both a lawyer and an excellent writer, in addition to being somewhat of a geek.  From the outset, his entire job responsibility has revolved around their content marketing efforts.
• They chose a slightly edgy name to brand their website, Out-Law.com.  It was meant to evoke a slight feeling of the American Wild West to suggest outside the box thinking.  The name is also easy to remember and easy to find via search engines.
• Their content is tightly focused on technology law.  They are crystal clear on their positioning:
  • They seek to provide everything about the law for technology firms.
  • They seek to provide everything about technology law for other firms. 
• Soon after Struan was hired, they added a full-time professional journalist, Matthew Magee, to make sure that their content was much more like a client centered publication than a legal firm’s dusty old marketing materials.
• They always write like business journalists, because they know that a high percentage of their current and future clients are  business executives, not lawyers.  They have also learned that even lawyers enjoy great journalism. 
• They do real reporting, including interviews with high-level executives and technology experts.  In early 2008, they scooped a number of publications by interviewing a European browser maker who was about to take on Microsoft in court. 

Before 2000, their marketing was conventional.  As Struan put it, “We were producing thousands of boring brochures that recipients tossed upon receipt.” The firm was unable to attribute any significant return on this brochure investment. They were doing it because they had always done it.

Three team members, attorneys John Salmon and Jon Fell joined by marketing manager,Vincent Gray, decided it was time for some significant marketing changes. They originated the idea for a website that would deliver valuable content that there current and future clients would actually want to read. 

A Website Loaded with Focused Content reaching 150,000 Monthly Visitors

Online, their goal is simple and ambitious, “to be the biggest legal brand on the web.”  After eight years of continuous improvement, they may well have nailed that goal.  In their first year on the web, they averaged just a thousand visitors per month.  In 2007, they attracted 1.8 million visitors over the course of the year. That’s more than a 10,000% increase.

The website is very much news driven, delivering three to five new stories every day of the week. Overall, the site contains more than 8000 articles on technology law and on law for technology companies.

The site is well organized providing a wealth of logically structured information, including:

• Out-Law guides on specific topics
• articles divided into more than two dozen categories
• articles sorted by the ultimate applications such as: startups, financial services, media and entertainment, and interactive media
• in-depth case studies are provided to explore some of the most pressing technology law issues
• information on the variety of services they provide
• who they are and why you might want to do business with the firm
• who to contact when you’re ready to do business

Almost all of the content on Out-Law.com is customer centric. It is carefully designed to make its readers better informed and more knowledgeable about legal issues within the firm’s areas of expertise. The website makes it very easy to find exactly what you’re looking for.

They are now also making all of their content available for PDAs and other Mobile devices. That way you can find exactly what you need even when you’re on the run.

Succinct Weekly Newsletter Directs 15,000 subscribers back to Website

Starting in 2000, they also created a weekly eNewsletter that now reaches 15,000 subscribers. It provides quick summaries of the top six stories of the week that link back to their website. In addition, you can click on a link that takes you back to the last month’s stories.

Other than their header, which focuses on the Out-Law.com sheriff’s badge logo, the newsletter has no graphical elements at all.  It’s designed to be a very quick read which enables its recipients to decide whether they want to pursue a particular article or move on with their day.

The eNewsletter is archived on the website going back to the beginning of 2007.  In addition, you can choose to receive it via RSS feed.  They added a smart and client centric twist to their RSS content.  They make 10 different RSS feeds available that focus on specific legal and technology topics. That way, clients can focus only on topics most important to them.  This is yet another example of Pinsent Masons’ focus on the information needs of their clients.

Pinsent Masons Has Been Podcasting since August 2006

Although business related podcasting is relatively new, the firm was characteristically a pioneer.  Just as they have been careful to operate more as business journalists than as lawyers, so too have they approached podcasting.

Matthew Magee manages the weekly podcasts as if they were commercial business radio broadcasts that you might expect in the US from NPR, ABC, or CNN.  Their objective is to conduct interesting, relevant interviews with experts who can provide unique insights to podcast listeners.  Of course, the podcasts are linked  both from their eNewsletter and from their website.

Recent Research Shows Tangible Content Marketing Results

In a recent e-mail survey that generated an impressive 700 responses, they made some important discoveries about their visitors:

• 38% are decision makers
• 96% plan to contact Pinsent Masons
• 63% found the law firm via the web
• only 14% were existing clients

More importantly, they are confident that they can track millions of British pounds worth of business to their online content marketing efforts. 

Relevant and valued magazine replaces ineffective brochures

When a law firm puts Homer Simpson on the cover of their magazine, Out-Law, you know they’re doing something very different from their peers.  As Struan says, “We set about designing a magazine that you would want to pick up on the newsstand.”  With Homer on the cover, how could you not pick it up? 

More than 10,500 targeted clients have requested copies. An additional 7000 are handed out at industry events each year.  Their objective is to be as interesting and compelling as any high quality business Journal.  They write for CEOs, CFOs, and COOs, not for lawyers.

As with any successful commercial magazine, they do an excellent job of integrating their content with high impact graphical material that enhances the readability of their feature articles.  This is not a law journal.  It’s an enjoyable business publication that just happens to cover topics about technology law. 

The content team has been very clever in the use of high profile entertainment images such as Homer Simpson and Matt Damon by approaching studios who are in the process of releasing films.  Not only don’t they have to pay high prices for great art work, they get it for free from studios that are only too happy for the extra promotion. Brilliant. 

In their most recent issue that covered a number of hot topics:

The potential assault on personal privacy by mega technology companies

• the unfortunate import of class action litigation from the US to Europe
• the danger of trampling on basic consumer expectations in a Web 2.0 world
• the risks posed by’ typo infringement’ of your website address by cyber squatters
• a company’s legal responsibility in the face of a security breach
• a lively mailbag section with spirited responses from readers to magazine content

Each of these topics could have been treated in a boring fashion and written in pedantic legalese.  Instead, the editors write in a comfortable, colloquial style that reminds us of how wittily articulate our British cousins can be. Here’s a snippet from the article about personal privacy:

These are companies with so much personal information about us that they see into the darkest reaches of our souls more clearly than Sigmund Freud channeled by Mystic Meg. They are peopled by zealous superbrains who doodle weather system algorithms while chatting to granny on the phone, yet even they can’t decide on the right way to handle our personal data.

Out-Law magazine is an unexpected pleasure full well written articles enhanced by professional design and compelling graphics.

Great Content Marketing Has Replaced Old-Fashioned Ways of Communicating to Clients.

Because of their single-minded focus on delivering great content through the dedication of two gung ho professionals, Pinsent Masons succeeded without spending money on unproductive marketing efforts. Even though most of their competitors are still pouring out large sums of money down that rat hole. This has proved to be both a smart and a cost-effective approach.

Apart from staffing, their other costs are minimal.  Because they have a sophisticated content management system they can manage all of their online efforts in house.  The most expensive components of their twice yearly magazine are printing and mailing.  Their art budget is just $600 per year.

They do no other advertising beyond their website, their eNewsletter, their podcasts, and their magazine.  In fact, they are able to trade promotion in their online or print vehicles for trade show booths and other event sponsorships.

Pinsent Masons’ single-minded focus on creating relevant and valuable content has paid off measurably for the law firm.  The sheer volume of their website traffic, the size of their magazine’s request circulation, and their 15,000 strong eNewsletter subscribership testify to their quality content.

They have created the Out-Law.com brand that stands for technology Law leadership.  It is recognized by thousands and thousands of Web visitors, eNewsletter readers, and magazine subscribers.  This unique and powerful brand enables them to stand out from the hundreds of other firms whose names still come from long dead partners.

As indicated earlier, they have been able to track millions of dollars worth of business to their integrated content marketing efforts.  Moreover, because they do no other advertising or direct marketing, they can isolate their eight year old content marketing strategy as their most important growth driver. As Struan Robertson sums it up, “OUT-LAW showcases our expertise to a global audience and differentiates Pinsent Masons from every other law firm around. It has been a huge success for us.”

Top Content Marketing Takeaways

Even a small, dedicated content creation team can make all the difference when it comes to providing relevant and valuable information.  Because they have a single-minded focus, Pinsent Masons’ two talented and motivated professionals have been able to outperform an army of lawyers in other firms who have been drafted to create articles.  Those other legal conscripts lacked the time, inclination, the talent–or all three–to provide timely and consistent content.

A business organization can build a brand with a carefully chosen name that comes to symbolize a wealth of valuable content that, in turn, reinforces the quality of its people, products, and services.

In the business-to-business arena, it is possible to completely abandon traditional marketing with a well planned and well executed content marketing strategy.

A small content marketing investment within a company of any size can deliver returns disproportionate to the level of investment. Once a basic content marketing infrastructure has been created, delivering that content can be both less expensive and more effective than paying for an advertising presence within traditional media outlets.