How Personal Injury Attorneys Can Better Market Their Practice

Being a lawyer is a complex profession. And not all cases is pro bono. In more cases often than not, attorneys need to creatively market and advertise their practice to earn their keep. Here are some tips on how to better market your practice.

If you are a personal injury lawyer (or are an attorney for a reputable personal injury law firm), and have limited funds to market your practice via television, radio or with print media, then the web will be your powerhouse channel to generate new cases. Here we shed light on a few sure fire ways to up your law firm's marketing game.

Assess Competition in Your Practice Areas

First you have to assess the competition in your given practice areas. In addition to seeing how your practice stacks-up and gathering insights, see what makes you different from them. Once you have that all sorted out make use of the information you have extracted to your advantage. Take for example, servicing a particular target audience or type of cases with a particular personal injury lawsuit (e.g. Automobile Accidents.)

Next is to check out your competition’s web site and try to make your firm’s website different from them. Typically, all personal injury attorney’s websites offer similar services and legal solutions. So to be different, highlight a specific type of injury or illness where you have vast experience on and expertise. By doing this you are also increasing traffic to your website and optimize your exposure to search engines.

Implement Web Marketing Strategies

Search Marketing

Take note that you can make use of Google AdWords to advertise your practice rather easily and quickly via search engines. This advertising platform makes use of keywords so make sure to put in the right words to attract people.

Because potential clients for personal injury attorneys typically search Google and other search engines for legal information and services, search marketing channels like AdWords are highly effective. We also suggest exploring SEO and content marketing, as these channels are highly effective for personal injury attorneys.

For example, Apolinsky & Associates, LLC is reputable wrongful death and personal injury law firm in Atlanta. They regularly publish informative blog posts surrounding the various legal areas they specialize in. Take a look at how these Atlanta personal injury attorneys are doing it by visiting AA-Legal.com.

Off-site Content Marketing

Another option is public relations, through free press releases, public interviews, articles and presentations. These materials can also be used in the website to show how the law firm or local personal injury attorney is an authority on a particular subject. Remember search engines love new content.

Public Relations

Another means of marketing your practice is being “out there”. By joining causes and organizations that is associated with a particular focus would be putting the firm and the attorney’s name in the public eye. You can also do public service campaigns like the hazards of asbestos in the workplace. These efforts will help you among other personal injury attorneys and law firms to appear more credible.

Legal Associations & Directories

The importance of promoting one’s practice is very vital to one’s success. It is good to join popular legal directories and associations such as Lawyers.com, Martindale.com and AVVO.com. This is an easy, effective and affordable way of advertising on the internet and promotes your services.

Social Media Marketing & Advertising

Another way of promoting your law firm is through social media marketing and advertising. A lot of businesses nowadays are making use of social media to market their services. Most social media platforms have built in data analytics tools to track progress and success of their ad campaigns. Some famous social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more.

Finally, keep in mind that it is better to be in touch with a smaller group of people several times than to be in touch with a large number of people a few times. By exposing yourself to a smaller group on a regular basis will show your availability to them thereby making them remember you more when the need for a personal injury attorney arises.

Money may be the number one factor in marketing one’s practice but there are ways that you don’t need to spend so much. In this age of technology, there are a lot of ways to make your practice known. You just have to be ingenious.

Custom Divot Repair Tools as Business Promo Items?

When it comes creative promotional items for businesses, resonating with your target audience is essential. Golfers among one of the most widely approachable populations when it comes to such marketing efforts. One of them most righteous promo item ideas we've found is using custom divot repair tools that are branded to whatever business, function, or purpose fits the bill.

But not just any custom divot repair tools. We're talking about the Mark Mender. If you have not yet heard about the world class divot repair tool called the Mark Mender and what amazing features it has to offer, then read on as we righteously dish it out.

Introducing Custom Divot Tools from Mark Mender

When it comes to leveraging the most unique and standout promotional items for golfers, there is good reason why the Mark Mender custom divot tool and ball marker is a major win.

Unlike conventional divot tools, the Mark Mender is a four-prong, multi-purpose device that uses a spring-loaded squeeze mechanism. This enables golfers to effectively repair their divot with meticulous care and with a layer of gratification and satisfaction.

Designed around an easy poke-and-pinch technique, the Mark Mender is able to repair divots without uprooting the greens. It's design and feel makes it far more original compared to other customizable divot repair tools. And because the Mark Mender is so highly regarded for its multi-functional capabilities, it has been touted as one the best promotional items for golfers.

Unlike Any Other Divot Repair Tool

What makes the Mark Mender so unique and innovative is its 4-in-1 functionality. The Mark Mender offers golfers far more than just an awesome ball mark repair tool. The handy device also serves as one of the best cigar holders. (And not like those cheap, unreliable cigar holders that attach to your golf cart.) We're talking a sharp, stainless steel cigar holder that you can carry with you as you approach the green to put.

But that is not all. The Mark Mender also acts as the perfect grip rest, enabling you to keep your golf grips dry from the dewy grass. The device is also affixed with a magnetic ball marker which is common on most other divot repair tools. The difference being: the magnetic ball mark is the component on the divot repair tool that's customized. So every time a golfer removes the ball mark to prepare for his or her putt, they'll see and remember the logo or graphic that's identified with your design.

In essence, there are few promotional golf items like the Mark Mender. If you want to make a statement virtually every time your target audience prepares for his or her putt, the this custom divot repair tool is sure-fire win.

A Divot Repair Tool That Greenskeepers Love

When it comes to fixing divots on the green, the Mark Mender's design makes it impossible to misuse and do damage to the greens. For instance, conventional divot tools (that use the basic 2 prong design), promote a natural tendency of lifting up around the divot. This actually uproots the grass of the green, causing damage that can take several weeks to heal. If you've ever noticed brown spots on the greens, then you'll be more mindful to know that this is simply the result of mindless divot repairing.

The Mark Mender divot repair tool is uniquely designed to mitigate mindless divot repair and minimize damage to the greens by fixing ball marks with proper technique. And while doubling as the ultimate cigar holder and magnetic ball marker, the Mark Mender is the hands-down the professional's choice among golf promotional items. See for yourself what renders the Mark Mender as a world class, custom-made divot repair tool. Leverage the best promotional golf item that can be fully customized to your company, brand, cause, or event.

Personalized Mark Mender Divot Repair Tools

By providing personalized promotional golf items at wholesale prices, you can customize your own Mark Mender divot tool for a number of branding, marketing, and advertising purposes. Whether you’re in need of promotional golf items for your business or want to introduce something unique to your arsenal of trade show swag, the Mark Mender offers practical golf promotional items that are both creative and appreciated among recipients.

And with a low minimum order on custom divot tool orders at wholesale pricing, you may discover the Mark Mender divot tool to be your reliable promotional golf gift for more than just one campaign or occasion. Not only is great for promotional golf items, but many other applications ranging from groomsmen golf gifts to tournament giveaways.

Don't settle for run-of-the-mill promotional golf items that end up lost and forgotten about. Try testing the waters with a unique and compelling instrument and take advantage of the Mark Mender golf ball divot repair tool.

Hope in Business

Hope by definition is an optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation of positive outcomes related to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large.

How Long Does One Stay Hopeful in Business?

Before I answer this very individual and personal question, let me just say this: I cannot predict the future. No one can. And if someone says differently…then they’re trying to sell you something!

In any business, uncertainty and hopelessness is the elephant in the room. Hopelessness and despair are a daily battle for every one of us. I include myself, because I am also a small business owner trying to make it here in L.A.
There are so many opportunities here that your life can change tomorrow. Tomorrow! And I have seen it.

My next-door neighbor who I have known for 15 years, is in his 50’s and he just landed a regular role on a TV show last month. And his advice is… don’t stop. Don’t give up hope. Keep going and it will work out.

But he is the exception, not the rule. But the one thing that I have noticed is that he was always hopeful about his future. He was always working at his craft. And this dedication constantly brought jobs, in both TV and Commercials. Now he has a family and a house to keep up…so this was always his reality check.

This was the one thing that gave him hope and drive to continue in the face of overwhelming odds.

There are many psychologists that have many theories regarding hope. I am going to go into a few of them here, in an effort to learn more about what is at the heart of hope and how to develop it like a huge set of biceps.

Dr. Barbara L. Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill argues that hope comes into its own when crisis looms, opening us to new creative possibilities. Dr. Frederickson argues that with great need comes an unusually wide range of ideas, as well as such positive emotions as happiness and joy, courage, and empowerment, drawn from four different areas of one’s self: from a cognitive, psychological, social, or physical perspective.

Hopeful people are "like the little engine that could, [because] they keep telling themselves "I think I can, I think I can". Such positive thinking bears fruit when based on a realistic sense of optimism, not on a naive "false hope".

For instance, we can be encouraged when we get a new contract or we get someone who is interested in having us work on a project for them. This is a great sign that you are getting better at selling your services, your products or your ideas. Hope is an indicator that “things might get better”.

The psychologist C.R. Snyder, Wright Distinguished Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Kansas, linked hope to the existence of a goal, combined with a determined plan for reaching that goal: Alfred Adler had similarly argued for the centrality of goal-seeking in human psychology, as too had philosophical anthropologists like Ernst Bloch.

Snyder also stressed the link between hope and mental willpower, as well as the need for realistic perception of goals, arguing that the difference between hope and optimism was that the former included practical pathways to an improved future.

Positive psychologist Charles Richard Snyder’s (1944-2006) area of work was on hope and forgiveness and the impact that hope can have on aspects of life such as health, work, education, and personal meaning.
Snyder postulates that there are three main things that make up hopeful thinking:

• Goals – Approaching life in a goal-oriented way.
  
• Pathways – Finding different ways to achieve your goals.
  
• Agency – Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals.
  

In other words hope was defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways. Snyder argues that individuals who are able to realize these 3 components and develop a belief in their ability are hopeful people who can establish clear goals, imagine multiple workable pathways toward those goals, and persevere, even when obstacles get in their way.

For instance, we can very easily accomplish the second point: Finding different ways to achieve your goals. With the Internet and with selling on the web, you can find an audience for your services in the blink of an eye. Using Google Adwords or Facebook Advertising, you can pinpoint your to audience down to a certain country, a certain age group, gender, age and what they are interested in. To look for new clients using these approaches can be an amazing experience.


Professor Fred Luthans, a management professor specializing in Organizational Behavior has an approach that he calls (POB) Positive Organizational Behavior. The goal of POB, which can work very well with actors/actresses is to:

1. Shift the emphasis away from what is wrong with people to what is right with people. In a corporate context, use employee appreciation and thank you gifts to express your gratitude. 
   
2. Focus on one’s strengths, as opposed to beating yourself up due to perceived weaknesses or screw-ups.
   
3. Be interested and increase your resilience, as opposed to ones vulnerabilities.
   
4. Concern yourself with enhancing and growing one’s wellness, prosperity and the good life, as opposed to going into the dark side.

Making the leap to POB can have a remarkable impact on how we do business. It pulls the intense focus away from under-performing, and it puts the attention instead on high performance… asking “how can we create more of this?”

Luthans and his colleagues have identified four qualities as the critical component in Positive Organizational Behavior.

• Self efficacy:  having confidence to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks
  
• Optimism: making a positive attribution and expectation about succeeding now and in the future
  
• Hope: persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals in order to succeed
  
• Resilience: when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond to attain success
  

Psychologists associate these four qualities with higher performance, commitment, and satisfaction. I think one of the most interesting and exciting things about these four qualities is that they are what’s called “state-like”.  That means that all four of these critical qualities are malleable and open to improvement when incorporated into ones life on a day-to-day basis.

How would this apply to business? Well, I think that for most of us, we were never taught these basic qualities, as when we went to college, we were more interested in other activities or classes. Most of us never set out to be a small business owner. But for me, the good news here is that if these qualities are “open to improvement” as Professor Luthans suggests, then we can learn these and get better at them with practice.

Shaping people’s beliefs and expectations to be more hopeful and optimistic is an essential component of positive psychology. In general, people who possess hope and think optimistically have a greater sense of well being in addition to improved health.

Of the countless models that examine the importance of hope in an individual’s life, there are two major theories that have gained a significant amount of recognition in the field of Psychology.
One of these theories, developed by Charles R. Snyder, argues that hope should be viewed as a cognitive skill that demonstrates an individual’s ability to maintain drive in the pursuit of a particular goal. This model reasons that an individual’s ability to be hopeful depends on two types of thinking: agency thinking and pathway thinking.

Agency thinking refers to an individual’s determination to achieve their goals despite possible obstacles, while pathway thinking refers to the ways in which an individual believes they can achieve these personal goals.

Establishing realistic and attainable goals in this situation is more difficult, as the individual most likely does not have direct control over the future of their career.
Instead, Herth suggests that the goals should be concerned with how the individual is going to personally deal with the rejections that business-people are barraged with on a daily basis.

Instead of drinking to ease the pain of my rejection or unemployment… I am going to surround myself with friends and family. Or I am going to branch out into another product or service. Or learn a new service that you can offer. Or learn a new skill that will help you with your business.

There is an important distinction to be made here: It is the division between hope and wishing.

Those that are hopeful are actively trying to find the best path of action to take while delving into the daily obstacles. However, research has shown that many of those who have “hope” are in reality only wishfully thinking and passively going through the motions, as if they are in denial about their actual circumstances.
So, back to the original question I posed at the front of this article. “How Long Does One Stay Hopeful in Business?

The only way to know if you’re on course is to perform a reality check every five years. That way, you can see if you’re making any real progress. And by progress, I mean genuine evidence you’re moving forward. That evidence can be in the form of:

• Continually getting new clients
  
• Growth in your company
  
• Interested clients asking you for your expertise
  
• Rave reviews from current clients
  

In other words, there has to be irrefutable proof that you have the skill and ability to achieve a long-term career as a businessman or businesswoman. If none of those elements are present, you can try waiting another five years for the next reality check, but it would be a mistake to go further than that.

There are several key points listed above that can help you to develop a better sense of resilience, a better sense of hope. Try them out…see if they work for you.

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

About The Author:
John Montana is an actor living with his wife in L.A. and has begun to make short films. His most recent film, “Hungry” has been accepted into 24 film festivals all over the world. Check out his short films at NoTitle Production Films.

The Basics of Facebook Advertising for Righteous Businesses

Facebook advertising is an option with seemingly endless advantages for businesses. As one of the top social media platforms, Facebook can be used to not only increase the number of 'Likes' to a webpage, but also for generating highly-qualified leads and increasing sales volumes.

The popularity and, therefore, power of Facebook makes it an avenue for business marketing that must not be ignored. Some have been able to enjoy amazingly high click through rates from the ads placed on Facebook. However, experiencing results like this require the right approach.

Learn To Measure Campaign Success First

Many of those who fail at Facebook advertising do so because they fail to establish the Key Performance Indicator, or KPI, for their campaign first. Your KPI is basically the goal of the campaign, which varies greatly between businesses, but can be accomplishes such as, earning more 'Likes' to a webpage, getting more squeeze page opt-ins, or simply obtaining more new customers. Once established, the KPI will serve as the foundation of your Facebook advertising campaign and dictate the presentation and purpose of each ad.

Use Only Highly Targeted Ads

Facebook is not only a great advertising outlet because of its popularity, but also because it allows marketers to target their ads with a remarkable amount of precision. This is because a great deal of info is provided on demographics and user interests, insight which has proven to be a very powerful tool for businesses. Although it is true that the more refined ads are the less impressions they get, highly targeted ads on Facebook generally have higher conversion rates.

Avoid Side-Column Facebook Ads

Some marketers look at the side-bar ads on Facebook and think they present a prime advertising opportunity. However, it is a well-established fact that these ads suffer low click-through-rates. This is because Facebook users log on to socialize and are not interested in shopping. The low clicks these ads get, along with the fact that there are more effective ways to advertise on Facebook, make them an utter waste of time.

Soft Selling Proves More Effective

Since users of Facebook go there to advertise and not to shop, hard selling is not a good approach to use. It is much easier to gain the attention of the audience with insightful copy that has real meaning for them. Earn their respect by positioning yourself or your company as a knowledgeable authority. Think about the benefits you can offer your audience and use that information to get noticed.

Use Facebook's Power Editor to Fine Tune Ads

Once your KPI is ready and your soft selling copy is done, it is time to fine-tune the ad so that it can be as effective as possible. Facebook's Power Editor is the best way to accomplish this. The tool can be found on the left side of the Facebook Ads Interface. Simply click on it, and then click on 'download'. All of your ads will get migrated to the interface, allowing you to easily manage just about all aspects of your ads.

Use Facebook Feed for Advertising

Side-column ads might prove to be highly ineffective, but advertising in Facebook feeds gives the highest click-through-rates. This is the option that you should select for posting your soft selling, fine-tuned content to Facebook if you want the greatest marketing success.