5 Ways to Make Your Articles Stand Out When Everyone is Writing About the Same COVID-19 Topics
Since virtually every law firm in the country is pumping out massive amounts of written content about the COVID-19 crisis, it’s hard for any individual thought leader to stand out. Homogeneity breeds content fatigue among readers—and already buyers of legal services are grumbling about receiving so much of the same.
Having a COVID-19 resource website page, populated with broadly relevant content about economic relief packages, insurance issues, force majeure clauses, and unemployment rules, among other issues, is a veritable table-stakes requirement for law firms right now. But for individual lawyers, who must continue to market despite the need to socially distance, writing more of the same is a recipe for anonymity. To stand out, and reach audiences in a way that drives new business opportunities, lawyers must take a different approach with their thought-leadership marketing.
We have been in the thick of helping our clients to create standout content over the last two weeks, and through that process we have had a chance to analyze and distill what works and what doesn’t in the COVID-19 marketplace of ideas.
Here are some ideas that will help you to write more effective thought-leadership articles:
1. Know Your Audience
Don't write for the masses. Have a specific person with a specific job title in mind and address their needs. Write like you'd speak to them. Fight your instinctive belief that the best way to reach a big audience is to write something that is broadly relevant. Instead, trust that a narrowly focused article that is hyper relevant to a small constituency will make a more significant impact (on your reader, and on your practice). People want to read content that seems like it was written specifically for them. If you have clearly defined positioning for your practice—you know what you do, and for whom—it will be far easier to craft and contextualize content that stands out.
2. Craft Unique Headlines
When everyone is in a rush to publish content about the same issues, most headlines will more or less look the same. That’s a problem, because a strong and unique headline is the gateway to your substantive content. Statistics show that, on average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest of an article. Accordingly, the effectiveness of your headline determines the effectiveness of the entire piece.
The key to writing a compelling headline is knowing your audience (see point one, above). When confronted with 60 articles discussing the ins and outs of COVID-19 paid leave rules for employees, the headline that mentions a reader’s specific industry is going to get the click.
3. Address the Implications of Information
Don't spend too much time on what happened. Explain why it matters. Again, this requires you to know your audience (everything in legal marketing circles back to positioning).
Information is plentiful these days—you’ll never beat the news media in breaking the story. Your job is to pause and consider the implications of information, and not merely summarize it. Accordingly, don’t try to be first. Take the time necessary to chart a course for your clients to follow based on the repurcussions of fast-moving legislative and regulatory developments. That’s the mark of a true thought leader.
4. Look for Unique Angles
One of the biggest wins we’ve had as an agency over the last two weeks was helping a client, who is a municipal law expert, write an opinion piece that called on his state’s government to amend its open meetings act to allow public bodies to restrict public access to meetings. In the rush to ban public gatherings, the state government missed the fact that state law required public bodies to admit the public to witness their deliberations. The piece was published in a local newspaper and within a few days an executive order was issued laying out a new public meeting framework along the lines of what our client recommended.
As you’re considering what to write about, keep in mind that things are happening so fast that important issues are being missed. Consider and write about the public policy implications of rapid legislative and regulatory developments. For example:
What predictions can be made about how the U.S. Department of the Treasury will administer $500 billion in bailout loans based on how it approached the banking and automotive industry bailouts during the Financial Crisis?
Will medical providers continue to be allowed to use commonly used services like Skype and FaceTime for telemedicine following the COVID-19 crisis?
Should states that don’t allow remote witnessing of signatures loosen their restrictions to allow people to execute wills and trusts without the need to meet and sign in-person?
Subject matter experts should be having a field day right now thinking through and writing about the multitude of topics that give rise to important public policy discussions.
5. Think Outside Your Website
Media outlets, already under intense economic pressure before COVID-19, are being hit even harder. From large conglomerates to small trade journals, the media is feeling the pinch from reduced advertising, which is resulting in layoffs and less resources. At the same time, the hunger for reliable content among media consumers has never been higher. Editors are trying to satisfy this demand, but are being forced to do more with less.
For lawyers, who now must rely on thought-leadership marketing as one of the only means to reach their audiences, there has never been a better time to pitch and publish content with well-regarded outside platforms. However, in the rush to be first, most lawyers are merely defaulting to publishing content on their law firms’ websites, instead of taking the time to find high-quality outside publishing opportunities for their content. With a bit of extra effort, you can make your content stand out and reach significantly larger and more targeted audiences through a smart external publishing strategy.
If you need help improving the effectiveness of your thought-leadership strategy or writing, please contact us.
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Jay Harrington is president of our agency, a published author, and nationally-recognized expert in thought-leadership marketing.
From strategic planning to writing, podcasting, video marketing, and design, Jay and his team help lawyers and law firms turn expertise into thought leadership, and thought leadership into new business. Get in touch to learn more about the consulting and coaching services we provide.