Laura Lee Sparks
Monday - Friday | 9am - 5pm Central
Laura Lee Sparks
Legal Marketing Maven is a full-service marketing implementation agency for estate planning and elder law attorneys. Yes, we specialize (aka niche’).
The majority of our clients belong well-known coaching groups and membership organizations dedicated to estate and elder law, and we exist to help them implement the ongoing administration of systems and technical marketing techniques that they have learned as part of these programs. As well as, providing them with additional marketing resources that compliment the materials that they are receiving as part of their memberships.
Our company also works to provide “behind the scenes” marketing support for many of these organizations that you likely belong to and highly respect. Our services are not in competition with theirs and in most cases, not mutually exclusive. We may even refer you to one that we believe is a good fit for the goals you are seeking to accomplish. (Note: we do not have any affiliate type models in place, a/k/a we do not receive compensation when making recommendations – it is simply not our business model).
Our services will not help you “get rich quick” or “build a million dollar practice” overnight. If that is what you are looking for, we suggest you buy a lottery ticket. We have been at the helm of many 7-figure practices, and as you can imagine, there is a lot of work involved.
Our focus is relationship-based marketing, which is a time-tested and proven approach to growing a law firm that helps you acquire better quality (and better paying) clients, position yourself as THE “go-to” legal expert in your community and uniquely nurture relationships with referral sources in such a way that they feel excited to send you new business, host joint events or have you come speak to their clients.
Our clients are routinely covered in their local newspapers, featured on TV, invited to speak at meetings held by influential advisors, area nursing homes, etc. and stay regularly connected with clients, prospects and referral sources through our use of automated campaigns, email marketing and social media strategies.
We also focus on maximizing your online presence by way of your website, blog, social media accounts, Pay-Per-Click advertising and search engine optimization.
If you talk to any of our current or past clients, they’ll likely tell you that it’s our team that sets us apart from the rest. It’s the “secret sauce” of our company. The core team has worked together over five years (pretty unheard of in our industry!)
The majority of our staff has a legal background, ranging from executive law firm management, paralegals, law students and even practicing attorneys who consult with us on the development of new campaigns and promotional materials. All of this is done with your ethics concerns and local bar rules in mind.
Plus we have all been impacted by the need for estate and elder law planning and we consider it our mission to share your message and the importance of what you do CLEARLY to those in your local community.
We have lost spouses and have watched young relatives die and their minor children wind up in the hands of the wrong guardians. We have seen first-hand the consequences of poor business and tax planning. We have loved ones whom basic Medicaid Planning or VA benefits have made a huge difference in their lives.
We GET what you do…and because of our own personal experience and legal backgrounds, we are able to convey this to your clients and prospects in a straightforward, urgent, yet easy- to-understand way.
The team at Legal Marketing Maven is dedicated to our clients’ practices as if they were our own. As professional service providers and not hourly employees, our success is vested in yours, so you will never face frustrating attitudes of indifference or “it’s not my job” from anyone on our team.
We are responsive, thorough, and deeply value the relationships with our clients. Many of our clients have worked with us for YEARS and the majority of our business has been built by referrals from such clients.
The freedom to use our work-product is unparalleled in our industry. We are fully transparent and believe that you should have full rights to use what you paid us for, even if you discontinue our services.
A while ago we sent out a warning of “things to avoid when hiring a marketing company” to our email list. These are actions that we as a company DO NOT practice under any circumstance. Here is a snippet from that article which sums up our promises to you…and questions to ask before hiring ANY legal marketing agency.
1. Avoid companies that could hold your intellectual property hostage
It has shocked some of our clients to find out that they are only RENTING their fancy website or other graphics from their marketing agency each month. When they decide to part ways the company, they retain ZERO ownership of the site and many times ZERO ownership of the content. For example, we have a client who once hired a nationally known web design and marketing company to redesign her site. After the new site was completed, they simply deleted her old one with all of her blogs and links that she worked so hard to build for SEO without asking! Then once she realized this company was taking her for a ride and she quit, they deleted her site a second time and she lost everything AGAIN. Over $15,000 down the drain. We’ve also seen marketing agencies and companies who insist on “hosting” websites, email lists and client databases so that you can’t access them or make changes without their help. They retain all the power and you are at their mercy in a sad attempt to get you to stay on board.
At Legal Marketing Maven, we set up all accounts under one centralized email address that you retain ownership of. It’s what we use to access your blog, email marketing platforms, social media profiles, search profiles, etc. If you choose to leave, that address goes with you and so does all of your data.
2. Watch for companies and organizations that make you scrub content when
you’re not in “good standing.”
Imagine this: You pay A TON of money to be in a program and invest in their marketing campaigns, systems and products. Over the course of time, you outgrow the program or it’s not a good fit. After dealing with the expected calls & emails trying to get you to stay in the program, the company then comes back with a vengeance, stalking you at every turn and insisting that if you leave, you must remove every blog article, report and campaign that YOU PAID FOR because you are no longer in good standing and it really never belonged to you in the first place. Unbeknownst to you…your six-figure investment only allowed you to “rent” some marketing and ideas. We see it happen almost monthly and it is devastating.
That’s why at Legal Marketing Maven, when we create marketing for clients, they own it. If we spend time building a client’s blog up, we aren’t going to sabotage their SEO years down the road and insist everything comes down if we part ways.
3. Long-Term Commitments.
As marketing professionals, we understand that some commitment time is necessary to truly gauge your results, but be cautious of long- term commitments that leave you stuck if the program turns out to be the exact opposite of what you signed up for….or just not the right fit for YOU. It happens and you should be prepared for it.
At Legal Marketing Maven, there are no-long term commitments and services can be discontinued at any time without hassle. However, for high-level private clients and those that require initial set up that is front-loaded on our end, there may be a limited commitment of up to 3 months.
4. Do they work with your competition?
A VERY important question to ask right up front is whether the company or agency works with other attorneys in your geographical area. If so, how many and what’s the scope of the work? Here’s why this matters. Let’s say you hire someone to do SEO. If the company is trying to increase rankings for you and your competitor down the street, they are essentially competing with themself. Will you come out on top or will their other client? It’s unethical and puts you and them in a bad position. Or say you hire a PR person. You don’t want someone approaching journalists or producers with the same exact press releases being used by someone else. That’s a fast way to make a bad name for yourself in the local media. Or, in the case of marketing materials, you don’t want the exact same newsletter going out to the same pool of people in your community….and you don’t want to be reaching out to referral sources with the same campaigns and seminar info as the guy down the street.
As a company, we only take ONE client per media market, because we do PR & blog content for SEO. We have waitlists because of this rule, and we’ll be the first to admit that as a business owners, it’s hard to turn away a paying client. But any other way would be wrong, and our integrity and the peace of mind of our clients’ means more to us than money.
5. Get To Know The Team.
With many companies transitioning to done-for-you services these days (hey–we’re trendsetters…what can we say!), it’s important to scrutinize the actual team since they will probably have more interaction with your firm than the company’s figurehead. Your image and your ethics are on the line. Find out who exactly will have their hands on your account and make sure everything is to your satisfaction.
Again, everyone on our team has a legal background and most have worked in law firms. We would never allow someone control over an attorney’s social media accounts, for example, who didn’t understand the law….or have a basic understanding of the English language. Other companies are using outsourced teams overseas to do these tasks. Mistakes can and DO happen in all companies, but especially in this area, buyer beware.
6. If you are working with an agency, where are they driving traffic?
Not long ago, one of our clients hired an outside agency to do Pay-Per-Click ads for them. Instead of driving to the firm’s website, they company actually made separate sites using ALL OF THE FIRM’S CONTENT! They were basically “duplicating” the site exactly and driving the ads to the site the agency owned with a different phone number. They also wanted to change the local profiles in Google and Yahoo using this “duplicated” site as well.
At Legal Marketing Maven, we always use YOUR content, intellectual property and phone number to ensure everything stays in YOUR control.
We are very selective about who we work with, as we encourage you to be as well. To discuss whether our many programs and levels of services are the right fit for you and your staff, please email help@tremendous-arm.flywheelsites.com or call 800-931.7696 to schedule a time to speak personally with Laura Lee.