Martindale-Hubbell s Transformation From Print to Digital. Phil Livingston

Transcription

1 Martindale-Hubbell s Transformation From Print to Digital Phil Livingston 1

2 Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory has been published since

3 Our Transformation Story and Key Learnings What I Will Share Today Our transformation story and how we did it Our business today in online marketing services How online marketing services in general are critical for every business, business leader or professional services provider 3

4 Massive disruption occurs at the low end. -- Clayton Christensen, Harvard B-School Information is cheaply indexed, stored, retrieved and shared 2000: Google became the de-facto directory for essentially all business information Barriers to entry dramatically reduced Price disrupters abound Amazon's Jeff Bezos buys The Washington Post for $250M (In the first half of 2013, the newspaper lost $49M) The New York Times Company sold The Boston Globe for $70 million (20 years after being bought for $1.1 billion) Newsweek is sold for $1 in 2010 (recently sold again to IBT Media, terms not disclosed) BusinessWeek sold for ~$2M to Bloomberg in 2009 (BW profit had peaked at $100M in 2000) 4

5 Martindale-Hubbell Evolution to Online Lead Generation Provider Books Martindale US law directory published 1870 Hubbell s legal directory published 1989 Acquired by Reed Elsevier Transition to Online Directory Martindale.com launched 1998 Lawyers.com launched Mobile Lead Generation 2007 Today 2007 Launched website/ SEO offerings 2009 Launched lead tracking 2009 Launched search engine marketing service 2010 Launched LawyerLocator 2012 Launched social media, mobile, and video 2013 Joint Venture signed with Internet Brands 5

6 The Martindale-Hubbell Transformation Print directory provider to lead generation and digital marketing services leader Primary products: Print Directories and Lawyer vanity merchandise Primary products: Online lead generation via Lawyers.com, a consumer destination, and hosted websites, social media and SEO services for small law firms 90% of profit from top 1,000 large law firms 2% of profit from top 1,000 firms as focused shifted to small law firms 45,000 customers 25,000 customers 6

7 ROI for our customers had to change! Significant shifts in technology and customer value proposition: Directory information became cheap and ubiquitous Created digital marketing products and services: Customer leads = Value Two Main Product Lines Lawyers.com and Web Visibility Solutions A New Game: Consumer Traffic Acquisition - Content -SEO strategies -Advertising/Branding -Google Adwords 7

8 What We Leveraged and What We Built Unique Peer Review Ratings 86% Brand Awareness Among Small Law Firms Large Customer Base (25,000) 400 Employees with HQ in New Providence, NJ Leading Edge Digital Marketing Services (SEM, SEO, PPL, Mobile, Video, Social, Local) +200 Sales Professionals Dedicated to the Legal Vertical Network of Lawyer Websites (6,000 websites) Shifted Focus to Lead Generation Powerful Websites Lawyers.com ~36m annual visitors Martindale.com ~11m annual visitors 8

9 Lawyers.com Website Traffic ( ) Investment in content, SEO, branding, Google Adwords pays off Annual Visitors (in Millions) M

10 Lawyers.com Evolution Site overhauled to become a rich, consumer resource Improved design and usability Invested in user testing (multivariable and A/B testing) Adopted SEO best practices, reduced reliance on buying traffic through Pay-Per-Click ads Use of API s, RSS, Video, Maps, Online Calendaring, Chat, Client Reviews Robust content (Legal News) Mobile Version, iphone App 10

11 Key Transformation Challenges Things We Did Right Strategy Target Market: shifted focus to the needs of small law firms (Lead Generation) Lawyers.com: invested in content, SEO and advertising (traditional and online) to build a top tier consumer legal resource. More traffic, more leads for customers. Talent Shift Upgrade people skills in several key positions, shifting to more tech-oriented talent Trained sales force to become more fluent in selling online marketing solutions and to do right by the customer New Product Introduction Call-tracking telephone numbers, profiles with video, live chat and blogs Websites, Social, Mobile Customers Focus Organizational wide focus on improving the Customer Experience and making it easier to do business with us Improved user experience on the websites through constant consumer testing 11

12 Key Transformation Challenges Things We Struggled With Legacy Systems Modified legacy systems should have started over E-commerce efforts poor Pricing Competitive pressures to lower prices put strain on margins Legacy products priced above market Sales Force Products and value proposition too complicated for easy transition Culture Shift Being nimble inside a $10B corporation (It s HARD!) Operations Delivering thousands of websites a year Complicated/logistics 12

13 Martindale-Hubbell Transformation: How We Did It Focused on Providing Better Customer Value Customer Experience Made it easier to do business with us Simpler contracts, invoices Centralized Customer Support Enhanced sales force training Improved tools to measure customer value/roi Call Tracking Numbers Weekly Leads Reports, including Lead Alert iphone App Lawyers.com User Experience Expanded from raw directory to rich consumer resource Built strong domain authority (how well a site ranks in searches) Focused on lead generation and ROI for paying customers (small law firms) Over 2 million pages of content and attorney profiles Ask-A-Lawyer Feature Chat capability Videos 13

14 Martindale-Hubbell Transformation: How We Measured It Adopted Net Promoter Score as Our Key Success Metric NPS is the Difference Between Promoters and Detractors 14

15 Key Metric: Net Promoter Score NPS Score becomes central focus for the business Customer Experience role created Monthly progress reports shared with all employees Quarterly root cause reviews held with product team Humble Pie gift basket sent each time we screwed up Hand-written THANK YOU sent to all Promoters Red Flag comments (0-6 score) prioritized and resolved quickly Outbound telephone calls to all new customers 15

16 Representative Customer: Martindale-Hubbell Created a Comprehensive Online Solution for Case, Rajnoha & Boudreau, a Three Attorney Firm Founded in 1975 Specializing in Family Law in St. Louis, MO Solutions Used in CR&B s New Online Campaign Web design Search Engine Optimization Profiles on Lawyers.com and martindale.com Preferred Placements Video production Results Averaged 269 new visitors per month with a total of 3,728 site visits 1 Delivered +48 to +88% more visitors than their old website 33% of all web visits originated from Lawyers.com and Martindale.com 1 Visitors from Lawyers.com profile spent 4x as much time on the site and viewed 2x the number of pages 1 Higher Authority in 6 months 1 Google Analytics,

17 Lawyers.com 17

18 Rich Content Including 1.1M Attorney Profiles Consumers Can Connect to an Attorney by Calling, ing, or Clicking on Website Access to Firm Blogs and Videos Descriptive Content Including Areas of Law, Attorney Education, and Ratings Geo Location with Ability to Receive Directions 18

19 Significant Continuing Investment In Content Legal Information Blogs Videos 19

20 Subscribers Have Access to Mobile Apps To Track Leads Lead Alert Application Refer an Attorney MH Lawyer Index App Perform Competitive Analysis Competitive Essentials ipad App 20

21 Not Just a Website All the Techniques to Gain Customer Visibility Primary Website Mobile Video Social Media Local 21

22 Digital Marketing: Implications for You and Your Business Why Online Marketing is Critical Best Practices for LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook What is SEO? 22

23 Think Mobile First This year mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common device to access the Web And younger consumers spend more time with their phone than watching TV Sample Mobile Website Personalization 23

24 Why Social Media Matters 2013 (Registered Users) 1 billion million First Blogs Launch LinkedIn Launch YouTube Launch Google+ Launch 500+ million Google Launch Facebook Launch Twitter Launch 250+ million 200+ million Source: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google 24

25 Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors and generate 88% more leads. * * Source: Hubspot, 2010 September 18,

26 Top Three Benefits of Blog and Social Media Marketing: #1 Generating more business exposure (reported 85% of marketers surveyed) #2 Increasing website traffic (69%) #3 Gaining marketplace insight (65%) * Source: 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report: How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses, Sponsored by Social Media Examiner, April

27 The #1 Social Media Network for Business Professionals 150,000,000 users in 200 countries Over 750,000 Senior Executives use it All the Fortune 500 companies have profiles on it Average household income is $109,000 * Source: Read Write Enterprise, 2012 Source: Google,

28 LinkedIn Best Practices Create a comprehensive profile Start by connecting with people you know Tip: Use LinkedIn Toolbar for Outlook Recommend others first... then ask to be recommended Join groups for referral sources & prospects Start a group for your target market Answer questions Update your status at least 3x per week List all your events on LinkedIn September 18,

29 Facebook Best Practices People have profiles, businesses have pages Update your status regularly Include calls-to-action, logos, pictures, and video Referrals are all about relationships! September 18,

30 Twitter Best Practices 145 characters headline + link real time search TweetBeep alerts of mentions of you, a client or prospect TweetDeck display columns based on search terms NOT Effective VERY Effective September 18,

31 What is Search Engine Optimization? On-Site Optimization What can be done on the pages of a website to maximize its ranking performance in the search engines for target keywords. On-Site Optimization Research Off-Site Optimization Off-Site Optimization Techniques involving securing links from other websites back to your site. Off-site optimization accounts for the majority of search engine results ranking. SEO 31

32 Anatomy of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) (More on Paid Search Later from Blerina) Search Terms Paid Search Local Results Organic Search 32

33 More Tips to Improve Search Engine Rankings SEO-friendly URL s, using keywords Use the best URL when there are several choices These are all different to Google: example.com/ example.com/home.asp XML sitemap and robots.txt files Authorship markup (rich snippet) Alt tags for images/photos 33

34 What Are Back Links and Why Do I Need Them? The Importance of Inbound Links Google s Results are based on a technology called PageRank Your Site High PageRank Site Think of a link from a well-ranked site as a vote for your site. The more popular your site is, the more votes or links you receive from other popular sites and the better you rank. 34

35 Google Adwords/Paid Search Ads to Increase Traffic and Leads Product Features: Keyword research Bid and budget management Ad copy Landing pages Ongoing optimization Reporting Geographic targeting 35

36 Next Steps Apply It to Help Grow Your Firm s Business Set Objectives Determine Your Digital Marketing Strategy Determine How You Will Participate in Social Media, Local, Video, Web and What You Will Measure Understand What It Takes to Be Successful and Keep At It 36

37 The biggest trend we see right now is the sophistication of the shopper. Thanks to Amazon consumers expect personalized interaction from every retailer. CQuotient The Web today is inundated with me too information Delivering compelling, informative and unique content is a novelty that consumers value. Website Magazine 37

38 Implications for Your Businesses Marketing Has Shifted from Offline to Online Consumers Are Looking for You Online! Phil 38