Legal Marketing & PR

Had a blast doing a webinar today for Moore Stephens North America about blogging for lead generation purposes. My presentation is on Slideshare.

Blogging for Lead Generation

And I promised attendees I'd follow up with this post about where to get posting ideas. 

It is geared for marketers who are supporting their firm's blogging efforts, but bloggers can do these things, directly, too!

• Search Twitter and search Google regularly for articles/news in your topic areas using keywords and phrases (experiment and adjust them to refine your results for greatest relevance)
• Subscribe to above searches in Google Reader so you can just check your Google Reader daily for new blog fodder!
• Subscribe to ALL related industry blogs (in Google Reader) and e-newsletters
• Comb through "sent items" in your email to find past emails you can sanitize (or have someone help you sanitize) as great "one Q at a time" postings. Add a sentence or two of context at the front and voila! Instant blog post.
• Feature clients, referral sources and PROSPECTS (like Scott Heintzelman of Exuberant Accountant does) by posting about neat stuff they are doing
• Seek out guest blog authors - people who are experts in your blog's industry focus area are best. Most willing might be experts who don't have their own blog or who are new to blogging and are seeking to build an audience.
• If you're a firm marketer, interview practitioners and draft some posts for them (but if they sit on them too long, stop doing this?don?t let them take more than 24-48 hours to turn a post around...this represents it's too low of a priority for them) 
• Suggest an editorial calendar, but allow for flexibility as spontaneous posts (as inspired) work best

Most importantly, if you're targeting business clientele, aim content at a very HIGH level for your intended audience. 

Don't, for a minute, be tempted to write "down" or your posts are likely to seem too "101" to the executive level people you are targeting. Even if (especially if!!) it's a little over their heads, it will showcase your knowledge. The opposite could make you seem condescending or out of touch with their real needs.