I recently had the distinct pleasure of hosting Paula Zirinsky (of Zirinsky Strategy) and Lydia Bednerik Neal (of Blattel Communications), two marketing and communications professionals with decades of experience between them, in an Office Hours webinar for JD Supra clients.
Lydia and Paula kindly made themselves available to discuss all things content marketing, thought leadership, and business development as it intersects with media/PR strategy.
We covered a lot of ground and here, in the first of two recaps, are just some of my takeaways from the meaty conversation:
Use content to establish your firm’s expertise – and your lawyers’ credentials – well before the news breaks
Lydia: “When breaking news happens, it's too late to begin credentialing somebody as an expert in their field.
If you're going to be on the Day One stories, you already have to have demonstrated a body of work – and a perspective, a point of view about whatever the topic is – in order to hit the ground running as soon as that thing in your area of expertise happens.”
And Paula: “When I was in-house and I put out a news release on a new practice or a new partner, I really took the time upfront also to have additional content on the firm’s website that supported what was in the news release, so that if the press was getting the release and they went to the website, they saw that there was a history there. There was content there.
It's not enough to say, ‘We have a practice.’ You have to have the content. You have to have the people. You have to have information that people can go back to. So content's incredibly important. And to me the thought leadership is what bumps you up. So you're the one the press really wants to talk to.”
Align your thought leadership, your content program, with your firm’s business strategy
This point does not stand alone; it is tied to what Lydia and Paula underscore above about establishing your lawyers’ credentials with content, early on. It is, in fact, how you get it done.
Lydia again: “[To have a content plan] start with a business development strategy, and where you want to take your practice. Be laser focused about how you repeatedly communicate to the world and get that visibility. Make sure that you're hitting on the things that you're anticipating are going to be happening in your field because you are that deep expert.
Have that body of work that's consistent over time, on topics and in the areas that you care about.”
Paula: “When you're in the Communications department or in a PR role at a law firm, you're an essential part of that whole puzzle around the practices, the firm, and your lawyers. And you have to really understand your role in helping to satisfy the strategic goals of the firm that you're working for.
So, for example, if your firm wants to be known for Judgment Enforcement, everything along the way, the lawyers, the practices, the business development efforts, the content that's generated … everything needs to support that focus.
And to be a thought leader, you’ve got to add something to the puzzle. You need to add thinking and insights and something that's not already there.”
Lydia again: “[This approach] also sets up what your perspective or your focus is. How you come at a story. So when a journalist is looking for somebody who can comment, they're going to be able to understand how you fit into the story, and what balance they can bring to whatever they're writing about, thanks to your perspective.”
Don’t break the news, analyze it (aka the difference between Content and Thought Leadership)
Paula, Lydia, and I had some interesting back and forth around the notion that, in PR work, the media is your client. I love that observation and there are many implications to it. One is very simply this: to be successful engaging with your client, wear your marketing hat and work hard to understand what they want. Or perhaps more importantly, what they need.
And what they very often need is your analysis. Here lies one difference between “content” and “thought leadership.”
"...the news has ripple effects of impact. That's where that thought leadership really takes hold."
Lydia: “Much of what the professionals we work with contribute to the conversation is not the Day One story. It's the Day Two. It's the Day Three. It's down the line. How is this going to play out? That's where your thought leadership delivers. It's the analysis.
It's not saying ‘There's a breaking news story.’ It is saying, ‘What does this mean in the various downstream environments? How does it impact your clients and your clients’ clients and their customers and the supply chain?’ Whatever area it touches upon, the news has ripple effects of impact. That's where that thought leadership really takes hold.”
And Paula: “When producing thought leadership around an issue or breaking news, you really have to ask: ‘How does this affect this type of client or this type of situation?’ You should also look at how you can have smaller pieces of content that are targeted to different industries or different types of clients so that they really understand what it means for them.
You must ensure your content speaks to things before your clients think they're an issue. And certainly before the press thinks that they're an issue.”
Tied to all three of the takeaways I’ve shared in this recap…
Lydia suggested, regarding your optimal approach to content, that “it's so important to make sure that the BD people and the Comms people are talking really early on.
So many times, somebody will be running with the BD plan and it won't be until much later in the process that Comms gets brought in and they're either having to play catch up or having to reposition, because the way [the firm is now] thinking about an issue doesn't resonate for the media.”
Paula reinforced this notion of internal communications and a cohesive, media-facing approach when she offered: “You have to know what your firm is doing, what your practice is doing, what your lawyers are doing.
Then the strategic piece: you look at the different journalists and really read what they're writing about and how they're writing about it, and who else they're talking to, and the point of view that they're giving in their stories. You will have to more than match what they already have if they have a body of work.
So, if you want to be in a certain publication, and they write about things in a certain way, write that evergreen article the way they want it. I cannot tell you how many clients I have now who just want their writing style to be like Axios. That's how they want everything to come out, and then they get [published in Axios]. Their heads are in sync.”
Thank you to Paula and Lydia for their terrific insights shared during this conversation. In the final part of my recap I’ll share the duo’s smart thoughts around utilizing analytics (some surprises there!) as well as a few specifics around content development best practices!
Until next time…
[JD Supra clients: log into your account dashboard to watch a video recording of the complete conversation. Look for the Office Hours prompt in your account homepage and click for the archive of all previous conversations.]
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Paul Ryplewski is VP of Client Services at JD Supra. Connect with him on LinkedIn. Follow his latest writings on JD Supra.