JUPITER, Florida—Josh Konigsberg, Partner & Co-Founder of Law Firm Marketing Pros, an award-winning digital marketing agency, recently joined Chris Mullins, a thought leader in the legal world of intake and attorneys, on her acclaimed podcast, Lawyers Tell All™.
Mullins begins the interview by asking Konigsberg to tell the audience about himself. He explains that he co-founded his digital marketing agency 13 years ago, but it didn’t service law firms exclusively until January of 2020—just weeks before the COVID pandemic. He notes that the agency’s first client was a family law attorney, who happened to be representing him in his successful effort to get full custody of his children. “When I met with her, it was really funny. She’s the first person I decided to talk to about doing this, and she said, ‘Oh my God, I know all about this, I just don’t have time to do it. Yes, I want to.’ And she just wrote me a check right on the spot.”
Although the first client was a lawyer, Konisgberg admits his agency didn’t always cater to lawyers. “What got you to say, ‘You know what, let’s just focus on attorneys?’” Mullins asks.
“We realized in the summer of 2019 we needed to pivot into a niche,” Konigsberg replies. “Content is king at the end of the day, so the content creation for a niche is more scalable. Even within law, we focus deeper on specific areas of law. So, we stumbled upon this group called Seven Figure Agency. I’m actually a mentor to Seven Figure Agency members. There are about 300 agencies worldwide, and growing. And the first thing they say when you join the group is, ‘You have to pick a niche.’ For us, it was pretty easy because about 50 percent of the clients in our agency were attorneys. Over the years, because attorneys are used to making referrals to one another, it was easy for them to make referrals to us. That made it a lot easier to make the decision.”
Next, Mullins inquires about Konigsberg’s book, Law Firm Digital Marketing Made Easy: The Only Book You’ll Ever Need to Become a Best-Known Attorney. “What got you to decide to write the book?”
“As we all know, law is a hyper-competitive market,” he says. “Digital marketing for lawyers is also hyper-competitive. There are two things that make you the expert: either you’re standing up in front of the room talking to them, or you wrote a book. It was easier for me to write a book than to get in front of a group.”
Konigsberg shares that two weeks before COVID, he spoke at the Palm Beach County Bar Association. Approved for two CLE credits, his presentation, How to Level the Online Playing Field to Compete (and Even Beat) the Big Firms without a Big Firm Budget reached a standing-room-only audience. “A lot of people wanted to talk to me, a lot of people were interested, and the next thing you know, COVID hits, and everything shuts down. Interestingly enough, we launched ten weeks before COVID and five-exed our growth in the first three years since COVID.”
Mullins asks, “What sets you folks (Law Firm Marketing Pros) apart from the rest?”
“Just like in sports, when you build a winning team, it’s the team from the top down. I’m not going to take credit for it; it’s the team around me. Oftentimes, I get on a Zoom meeting; I’m the dumbest guy in the room,” Konigsberg laughs. “We’ve got these high-end computer-programming engineers; both of my (business) partners are engineers. Our leadership team is just absolutely tremendous, the quality people we’ve been able to find. I’ll thank COVID for some of that because we can now work remotely rather than try to find people locally. My pay-per-click manager is in Iowa; my social media manager is in Maryland. I’d say that forty percent of our staff is South Florida, though.”
He observes that many digital marketing start-ups use white-label providers. “I’m not going to bash white-label providers, but when you’re in control of results, you get better results,” Konigsberg states. “Our Content Team is in-house. The fulfillment of the services has to be top-notch.”
Next, Mullins and Konigsberg take a deep dive into reputation marketing, one of the agency’s signature services. “Reputation management is reactive; reputation marketing is proactive. It’s creating a great reputation and making it go viral,” he explains. “Our reputation marketing program is by far the best one out there for multiple reasons. What is the value of having the best reputation in your market for what you do as an attorney? It’s invaluable. Consumer behavior is shifting; we all know consumers are paying more attention to reviews. Having a great reputation is more than that, but it’s a deeper conversation. A lot of attorneys don’t think about their reputation until it’s a problem. Our goal is to get in front of it and create a real online reputation and let your clients facilitate making that go viral, so everywhere your potential customer looks, they see and read great things about you. To me, that’s invaluable.”
“I think your book says something about ‘take your life back?’” Mullins asks.
“As consumer behavior has changed and shifted, you have to shift with it. You have to continue to evolve as an agency, providing services,” he replies. “Five or six years ago, five percent of people who went to a website took an action. They either picked up the phone and called or filled out a chatbot or a lead gen form. Now it’s less than three percent. Now, they’re going to your website, going to YouTube to watch a video. They read reviews; they look at your social media; they hit a retargeting, they go back to your website, maybe go back and read some more reviews. Maybe they’ll see an Avvo or a Justia, or a Lawyers.com review. They’re all over the map, so to speak. The first thing someone does when they need a product or service and don’t have a referral is to go online to Google. A referral is going to convert a lot easier, but they’re still going online to check it out. To capture as many conversions as possible, and at this level, I’m going to call a conversion as taking an action. To get as many of those as possible, you need to create an online omnipresence, so everywhere they look, they see you. It used to be seven touches; now it’s 21. We realized over time that we needed to create a system. We created something called the Law Firm Client Generation System. I talk about that in the book. The beautiful thing about the system is it’s designed to be modular. Before we had the system, it was a la carte. The problem with that is you’re not getting consistent results, meaning consistent, qualified leads easily convertible to clients, week after week, month after month, year after year. With the Law Firm Client Generation System, if you’re one person, I’ve got a program for you, or if you’re a 150-employee PI firm, and everything in between.”
“It makes a lot more sense for you to do everything because first, that’s what works, and if you’re not doing what works, they’re not going to stay with you; they’re going to the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and that’s not going to work, either,” Mullins says.
“We call that agency churn and shiny object syndrome,” Konigsberg explains.
Watch the full interview below.
About Law Firm Marketing Pros
At Law Firm Marketing Pros, our vision is to help improve the way law firms market their services. Our mission is to educate, serve, and provide our clients with the most cutting-edge, efficient, and cost-effective online marketing tools available, to increase their revenues and profits, and exceed their goals.
Learn more at our Facebook page and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Please feel free to contact josh@lawfirmmarketingpros.com with any questions about Law Firm Marketing Pros.
Law Firm Marketing Pros
250 S. Central Blvd, Suite 100-A
Jupiter, FL 33458
(561) 948-5001
https://lawfirmmarketingpros.com/
About Lawyers Tell All™
Lawyers Tell All™ is a powerful platform that pulls back the curtain and gets to the heart of what lawyers need to succeed, hosted by Chris Mullins.
You are about to meet innovators in the legal profession who take you beyond the stereotypes and show you the entire picture, including powerful stories and lessons that will inspire you. We’re all in this together.
Enjoy these conversations that reveal how things look through a lawyer’s eyes and find yourself inspired to connect – or reconnect – with your mission to make the world a better place through your work and service.
