Marque Lawyers has something to say.
Having beliefs and values, and being willing to talk about them, is a fundamental element of any content marketing campaign. The point of content marketing is to write about what matters to you, and build the personality of your brand.
Marque Lawyers is different in the first place; it doesn’t charge by the hour. Managing partner, Michael Bradley, says: “Charging by time is insane; it bears no relationship to value. From the client’s perspective, charging for your time tells them nothing about the value of what you are doing, and they cannot control it. It is an unknown.”
The group of lawyer who started the firm all came out of traditional firms. “We were pretty frustrated with conventional practices,” Bradley says. “From the lawyer’s perspective, measuring your value by time is soul destroying and unsatisfying. It has nothing to do with intellectual challenge and reward.”
By working on a retainer, or on a fixed-price per project, the relationship with clients is transformed. Not only does it remove all arguments about money, it allows relationships to build. “If I ring a client and ask about their weekend, they are not on the line worrying about whether I am charging them,” Bradley says.
The firm publishes legal updates on its website’s Soapbox section with categories such as:
Bold opinions (32)
Legal writings we wrote (185)
Other random stuff (14)
Photo Gallery (12)
Things the media said about us (106)
Its main content campaign, however, is via Twitter. “We are actively using Twitter as our primary social outreach,” Bradley says. “It’s changed as it has gone on. It is less and less about the law and more about social, political and legal issues. We are quite opinionated.”
Bradley is clear about the purpose of the exercise. “It is not about publishing stuff about yourself; it is there for engagement, conversation and feedback. Those are the things that lawyers really shy away from. Someone talking back to you is terrifying.”
It’s not an effort to be controversial. “We aim to be honest and authentic and if that means being controversial, we don’t mind.”
Marque Lawyers is not all that concerned with measuring the precise impact on profits or sales from its social media marketing; the point is to differentiate.
“Undoubtedly, these things work in mysterious ways. For us it is good marketing to have a profile, and a differentiated profile that will pay off in quite tangential ways.”
So, how’s business? “Brilliant,” Bradley says. “Apart from the benefits for us and our clients, it is ultimately more profitable. Clients do expect you to make a profit, and they don’t mind as long as it’s fair. They are happy to pay for value.”
Marque Lawyers is a founding member of Conscious Capitalism ins Australia, a global organisation designed to redefine the role of business. “We are really interesting in using our position to involve ourselves in discussions of importance.”