GUEST BLOGGER: Cheryl Bame, Principal at Bame Public Relations 

Many professionals want to see their names in print, either by being quoted in the press or by writing a bylined article. If you want to take the latter route, then there are some important questions you need to ask yourself before you set out to write your masterpiece. And these questions go beyond the traditional tasks of identifying your target publication and getting your topic approved by an editor.

GUEST BLOGGER: Kimberly Alford Rice, Preisdent - KLA Marketing Associates

Why Firms Should Develop a Strategic Plan

When I work with law firms, which profess to have strategic plans, I find it bewildering that they often are stored in the management teams’ drawers somewhere and rarely are implemented. I scratch my head and ask why bother expending the energy and time to develop a course for the firm if there is no system created to implement the plan. What a colossal waste of everyone’s time and resources.

GUEST BLOGGER: Larry Bodine Esq., Business Development Advisor 

From Hubspot: We all know our website is a key part of our marketing and lead generation strategy. But when prospects visit your site, what are they looking for? What do they want to see, and what do they consider most important? To find out, RainToday.com surveyed more than 200 buyers of business-to-business services—in companies of all sizes—to rate the importance of various elements of a service provider's website.

Simply because your title doesn’t say Marketing Strategist or Director of Strategy does not mean you should sit on your hands and not suggest strategic solutions to your internal and external clients. Consider this for example:

We all want our websites to be found, positioned and ranked high by search engines. Are you checking to see that your site is attracting traffic? Or, are your professionals sending you emails asking you why your firm’s site doesn’t appear on the first or even the second page of search results? SEO is not optional; it is critical to the success when designing or redesigning websites. We all have websites; we all have to take SEO into consideration when building our sites!

As marketing professionals, we are continually searching for ways to extend our brand and touch our clients and prospects in a cost effective way, but how do you know your tactics are effective? Now more than ever, we should be building tools into our marketing strategy to track and analyze the results.