BluShark Digital 0:00
Welcome to the SEO insider with your host, Seth price, founder of BluShark, taking you inside the world of legal marketing and all things digital.
Seth Price 0:10
Welcome back, everyone. We’re thrilled to have you here, another edition of the SEO Insider. Thrilled today to have Ron Latz here. He is a guy from the industry, from the digital space, from the marketing space, from the legal space. I checked on LinkedIn, we have approximately 1000 overlapping connections. That’s not enough. That shows you we’re circling in very similar fish bowls. You know, Ron’s been in the fine law world. He worked with one of my favorite people in the space, Conrad, for a number of years, and it has a very much needed operation now doing fractional cmo work for law firms. Welcome Ron, thanks
Ron Latz 0:46
for having me. Seth, that I appreciate it. I haven’t been on the conference circuit nearly as much as I was back in the agency a couple years ago, but it’s good to see you again. It’s
Seth Price 0:54
good to see you. So look, one of the things we talk about, a lot of things I know you know, the the Gretzky, catching up with, with, with talking about, but before we get into the personal, let’s, let’s go straight to business and look one of the things that I see, and I personally struggle with, with a law firm Price Benowitz, which is the CMO role. And it’s no different, I think, than the CFO role, where law firms need, whether it’s financial help on the CFO side or, you know, marketing help at a senior level, but most law firms, when their revenue is in the million, single digit, or, God forbid, even, you know, double digit, you know, between eight eight, between 10 and $20 million don’t generally always have the budget for a true industry leader, financial marketing or otherwise operations, right? We talk about coos, talk about CMOS, but most people end up with who they can get paying a more modest salary, and that the need for somebody to come in who has industry expertise, you know. So talk to me a little bit about your journey to becoming a CMO, yeah. I mean,
Ron Latz 2:04
I’ve been in the legal space for 15 plus years. Seth, and I always enjoyed working with the group of people like you said. Started out with Reuters fine law. I was selling marketing and advertising. When I left there, I started my consulting shop as more of a side hustle, if you will. I then joined Conrad. I was helping rebuild Mockingbird marketing, and I really saw a gap in this, in this space. And also, no matter what I did when I represented the agency side, I couldn’t remove myself, understandably so, from the inherent bias that these firms just thought that I was trying to sell them the marketing services and products that I was offering at the agency. And there was a need also where sometimes the agency might be as be at fault for not delivering or being accountable for results. But then there’s also the side of the house where the law firm might not have their services on lock, and they might be missing phone calls or not getting approvals back. So I really went out to just solve that problem, to ensure the left hand knew what the right was doing. There was constantly going to be open lines of communication, and ultimately that the strategy that was in place, hopefully there was one in place, was tied back to, like, some to some business goals and financial metrics and
Seth Price 3:23
things like, look, it’s so funny today. So I’m an unusual beast, or I got a law firm, I got a marketing agency, right? And what’s so crazy is, over the years, there have been points I’m like, Look, you know what? I got this whole agency. I was old digital, until about two years ago, when we added some off, offline radio, TV. But, you know, for years, I was like, Do I really even need somebody? And you know, I had a series of junior people that circled in and out. But it’s very frustrating, because you would think if you signed paychecks for two different groups that this is an unusual situation, that they would be aligned. But there is a certain yin yang that agencies, even one where the owner owns it, there is a back and forth, and that that back and forth becomes, even though it’s a placeholder, I always wish could be a bot, but I sort of tongue in cheek, but the thought that there is a place for a law firm to be able to bring ideas directly from the firm, which won’t be extracted unless there’s a person there, and to bring feedback from an agency. Because, look, you’ve been on both sides of it, it works best when there is a true partnership and that the needs of the firm are being brought forth and that the needs of the agency are being solved. We have people where they won’t approve content, they won’t make decisions on things. And while you can do things as an agency, it’s not nearly as effective as when you’re working hand in hand, for
Ron Latz 4:47
sure. And one of the benefits that I have is that there’s that built in trust. I’m in systems like lead docket and file bond and lawmatics and HubSpot, so I can look at all the conversions, understand how many qualified. Opportunities are being created. And then, based off of the feedback from the lawyers around, what were their expectations met? Was this an ideal client like was were these the case types that we were looking for? Feed that back to the agency so that they can go and try and find more of those look alikes,
Seth Price 5:16
right? And I look there’s also a part of this, right, especially with a paid search, you know very quickly whether it’s working or not, but the organic game takes a long time. And there are two categories, right? There are agencies that don’t know what they’re doing that may never get there, but for those that have sort of been vetted, that you know, generally, if they have a plan and they’re executing on it, what as it as a law firm, it’s that early days where you’re waiting to get to the point of critical mass, right? If you’re start on the fourth page of Google and you’re on the second, you may have progress, and there may be deliverables that have been done, but it’s not making you any money, and you’re not seeing it. And the translation, just like when you’re building a home, if you’ve been through that process, you may have a contractor, General Contractor, but for larger projects, friend of mine does this. For stadiums, having somebody that can be between the buyer and the person doing the work is incredibly valuable on a bunch of levels. One, to let you know you’re getting what you paid for, yeah. And second, making sure that that that you’re sort of being that checks and balance. To me, there’s a huge benefit to it, and one that that I see only recently being developed as an as an industry. We saw the fractional CFOs pop up a few years ago, but I feel like in the in the recent last two years, many more fractional CFOs have raised their hand, and I think for good reason that there’s this missing piece that when you want and as we see organic, local search being so dominant that it is not intuitive. You can’t just look and see what’s being done. But having somebody police, partner with and communicate is really it sounds like, Oh, what do I need that for? But it makes a big difference, in my opinion. I
Ron Latz 7:07
mean, it’s, it’s translating what the agency is doing, because the firm really doesn’t understand the language. So to know what they are doing, why they are doing, like, acting as that intermediary, I’m able to say there’s a reason why the agency is doing this and the translation part as well, because they don’t know it take, for example, what happened over this weekend, I saw that you jumped on Tom COVID podcast to talk about, like, you know, every single one of my clients, I got text messages, emails, phone calls. What is the agency doing? Why is my why are my reviews automatically disappearing? What is happening out there? Right to then have just an open conversation. Just say, Listen, this isn’t, this isn’t the agency’s fault right now, right? There’s a couple of different things that could be going on, right? Ai glitch. It could be a spam algorithm. Quality update, you know, something might just be going haywire behind the scenes. But, like, this is widespread. It’s happening across the entire industry. Like the best like defense to this right now is a solid offense, right? We have to continue going back out. We have to continue asking for reviews, kind of, you know, talking them off the ledge about that. This isn’t the end of the world. It’s just something that we have to address, right? So I’ve
Seth Price 8:18
been front and center. I talked to him about I’m actually about to record when I when I got off with you something for the law firm blueprint, but with Jay. But ironically, I’m in a unique place. Here. We see the inside of so many law firms, about 300 that we were able to get pretty good data pretty quickly. I don’t think this is a glitch. I did this May, hopefully this doesn’t air out, but if it is a glitch, I think it is indicative that Google is digging in, and I think that this is intentional, despite what some industry leaders are saying, in the sense that we are when we see the reviews being removed for the people that we have full access and transparency to, I can tell you that there have been patterns to what’s being removed. Duplicate reviews account for a large percentage of them. Spikes in reviews for some clients. So one client added 100 reviews in a two week period in December where the all of them that we could see had a single This was their only review being left, which means it’s either fraud or manipulation, meaning it could be that they’re going out there and soliciting them, but that spike is not natural, and Google said for a long time they don’t want to see spikes. I’ll give you an example that hit price benefits. We thankfully very nominal. Four reviews here, three reviews, another profile, but I’ll give you an example. We had a practitioner profile that when somebody left the firm, got merged into the firm’s profile. Okay? And there were, by definition, two reviews where the person had reviewed that practitioner profile and the law firm. Yep, right. Not surprising that that those two reviews disappeared. So. You know, I have seen a pretty, uh, dramatic correlation based on the people I know, without even looking into the reviews, some of the people that sort of reached out through LinkedIn over the weekend, that people that are super aggressive, and you know them, you know them as clients, and you know them as lawyers, business people that people that are super aggressive, not surprisingly, saw a higher percentage of review, of remove, of reviews removed, than people that you know were more conservative, where a handful might be going, because, like, it’s not like they’re malicious. We didn’t intentionally try to but we were like, Hey, we have no place for this profile. Now it’s gonna be part of it. And you know what those those two reviews shouldn’t have been there if you were looking for now, does that mean that if you’re at a Hilton and you stay there two years later, you can’t review it? Review it again? I don’t know. You know, we’ll find out how this assesses out. Very often Google overreaches. But for those people that have reviews removed, my two cents is a first, track it so you know what’s going on. Yeah. So the good news is, some of your clients are tracking that’s a good thing. Second, you know, when that happens, you have a couple pieces of resource. One is to look at and say, Yeah, we got to clean up our act, because we think that Google’s sending us a message, versus, okay, we don’t see a reason for that, because I’m sure there are some out there that have no reason for none that you can discern. So you have two choices. You go back to Google and say, Hey, we think this was removed incorrectly. Or if you’re keeping track of who’s leaving the reviews, you pick them and say, Hey, would you do mind me a favor? And leave us leave it again. I mean, it’s the sky is not falling. It’s generally low single digits of of of them being removed. And if not, it’s sort of like what we saw with the virtual offices, right? One day, a bunch of people woke up and saw them gone. You know what? A handful of those people were in the same building with a Regis. They were on a different floor. Some people were in a Regis, and they had an actual suite with a key and a door lock. Great, so you got those back. But for a lot of people, Google is sweeping it out. And I think we’re seeing the beginnings of Google taking, I don’t say review fraud, but reviews more seriously. You know, I think there’s a big elephant in the room unrelated to this, which is, what is a review? Is it somebody who retained you Right? Which would make sense and at Yelp at one point had that had to be a user experience, versus somebody who called your intake and didn’t like the tone? To me, that would be like going to carbons on a Saturday night with a table for six, and walking in at seven o’clock like you own the joint, and them saying, Sorry, we’re fully committed, and you leaving a bad review. Is that worthy of it? Just like on TripAdvisor, if somebody never makes it to the hotel but doesn’t like their cancelation policy because their grandmother got sick, is that a valid review? So again, I think Google is figuring out they know they have a problem, and this is their first step at some level of figuring that out.
Ron Latz 12:45
Yeah, we will. We’ll see if the dust settles over the next handful of days, right? Google is going to take action. FTC came out last August with updated regulations about how they were going to try to help combat spam and fake followers and social signals. So it’s only a matter of time before, hopefully some of the bad actors kind of get cleaned up or get their slap on the hand that’s been coming to them, and the ones that unfortunately lost, you know, I’ve only had clients that the most was a couple dozen reviews, right? So they’re just, they’re getting back up on the horse. They’re gonna go and ask some people that left very, you know, positive feedback even otherwise.
Seth Price 13:22
But I would challenge you to go back and take a cross section, because I think you’ll find you have enough clients, you’ll figure out very quickly. And you could you already know that, like Man, they should, anecdotally, are the people that are more aggressive getting more reviews removed on this outlet. You know, the guy who’s squawking the most is the guy that is the most aggressive. And again, I am not sure that I would advise somebody not to do that. Meaning, I mean, I don’t say, Go get duplicate reviews, but know that, like one of my ethics lawyers always like, there’s risk getting out of bed in the morning. Everything comes with risk. Don’t be stupid about it. But I see people on in Facebook groups with saying, I’ll review you. You review me with 50 lawyers. You’re finally Sure I’ll do it. I’m like, Look, it’s a pattern. Google doesn’t want to see patterns. It’s unnatural. Like, stay away from that. Yeah,
Ron Latz 14:11
the ones that you know, you went and got out a dozen a day, dozen for weeks straight. It’s just, they’re gonna pick up on that. So space them out a little bit more. Be a little bit more thoughtful, more strategic about it, so that you’re diversifying and putting yourself in a better position to hopefully come out on scape next time.
Seth Price 14:29
Absolutely what you know, what are the things you see that like when you because I love asking people, you look inside of more law firms than the average person you see the inside, you know, and not just from an agency point of view, but somebody who’s now part of that team. What are the some of the biggest mistakes or things that area easy, sort of low hanging fruit for law firms to improve when it comes to their their marketing efforts. I
Ron Latz 14:52
mean, a lot of them that don’t have, uh, at the beginning stages of, uh, of an engagement, where they don’t have, like, a sound strategy, they’re just trying. Throw money in any in any single channel. They don’t have metrics to like, hold a vendor accountable. It doesn’t tie back to their business goals or their objectives, right? There’s also some firms that have an in house resource that they expect to do the work of a unicorn, and they’re doing every single thing underneath the sun, right, just getting clarity around where their investment dollars should be allocated, what those internal resources should be doing, and then understanding what the reports are saying so that they can pull the levers to improve performance, is one of the biggest things. The data, data hygiene, too, right? Like, if they have a CRM, are they actually using it? Are those reports meaningful? Are they reliable, so that you can make decisions based off those things, like getting that house in order, so that you can make decisions based off of that data, and not just your gut, because you think something’s going on, like those are where they’re struggling. The most
Seth Price 15:52
awesome look, I appreciate it, Ron, it’s great to see you back in this role. I think this is a a a great, very needed one. I hate this question, but since you are, you know you’re not part of some large organization, what’s the best way for people to connect?
Ron Latz 16:09
Check me out on LinkedIn. I’m sharing content every day. Or go to legal phoenix.com sign up for the newsletter, and you’ll get updates about that and everything else that I’m doing.
Seth Price 16:16
Well, look Ron, I appreciate you making the time, and know that you know, as somebody who sees it from both sides, the you know the even the best intentioned law firms with staff rarely hire somebody with enough experience to be able to think analytically at the highest level. And just having somebody, even if you do have a team to be able to be It sounds crazy of checks and balances in your own team, but I find that marketing in general is one of those places where it’s so hard to vet what are the skill sets the people you have in house so that having somebody like yourself, I’m a huge fan of appreciate it. Seth, thanks again for hopefully catch up soon on the road. Sounds good. Thanks everybody for watching. We’ll see you soon.
BluShark Digital 16:59
Thank you for tuning in to the SEO insider with Seth price. Be sure to check back next week for fresh insights into building your brand’s online presence. Episodes are available to stream directly on BluShark Digital’s website. Beth.
