InsideLegal

The Annual ABA TECHSHOW is coming up March 13-15 in Chicago.  We recently teamed with Larry Smith, Executive Director of ABA’s Law Practice Management Section, to put on a webinar to shed some light on the audience of the show, as well as the many improvements and changes to the show for 2008. Some notable changes for 2008…

• One major change is the location – for years the show has been held at the Sheraton Chicago, but this year it has been moved to the Hilton’s Flagship hotel, the Hilton Chicago on Michigan Avenue.
• Friday’s lunch will be a plated event and will host the winners of the James I. Keane Memorial Awards.  The awards will give recognition to law offices or legal organizations that have developed legal service innovations delivered over the Internet.
• We will be producing a Legal Media Panel with the ABA LPM at TECHSHOW.  This is an excellent opportunity to get in front of editors from the major legal publications.  Get your booth setup early on Wednesday so you can be there at 3pm!  There will be a media and faculty reception immediately following at 4pm.
• ABA has added TECHSHOW After Dark Thursday night reception – In the Hilton Chicago’s Grand Ballroom – food, drinks, networking, music and dancing.

Below is a copy of the presentation in case you weren’t able to attend the webinar…

Download making_the_most_of_your_presence_at_aba_techshow.pdf

Many legal technology vendors are constantly looking for ways to increase their marketing involvement with ILTA and ILTA’s members.  If you are trying to get in front of technology contacts at medium to large size firms, ILTA is as good as it gets.  Now, in addition to their Annual Conference here in the states, you can become a sponsor at their UK event, INSIGHT 2008. 

If you are an ILTA member and would like to attend, you can find more information here.  If you are interested in possibly sponsoring the event, here is information from ILTA’s Program Director, Peggy Wechsler…

Building on the resultant success of past events and leveraging the feedback from the attendees, we are pleased to announce ILTA’s 3rd annual U.K. event, INSIGHT 2008, to be held 15 April 2008 at the Hilton London Tower Bridge Hotel.  This year’s event will feature two tracks targeting CIOs, operational managers, lawyers, litigation support specialists and in-house legal staff.  Sessions will focus on practice management systems (in conjunction with LITIG), digital rights management, outsourcing, e-disclosure, KM and enterprise searching, "crystal ball" technologies, e-billing and much more.

We’re excited to be offering the ILTA experience in London again this year, and this special event is evidence of our commitment to the strategic direction provided by our Board of Directors, a plan that has us becoming more international in scope.   The legal profession has indeed become more global, and we’re hopeful to assist our members as they face the challenges of globalization. 

As we have found in our long history in the U.S. and Canada, our vendor sponsors play a key role in ILTA, providing support, education, information and solutions to help our members make technology work in their law firms and law departments.  We are offering vendors an opportunity to be involved in our expansion abroad.  Vendor sponsorships are very limited.

For months you have been preparing for LegalTech New York and now the show is over. You successfully acquired a stack of leads while hopefully reinforcing your marketing message to a large audience of your prospects. With all it takes to successfully exhibit at a show of this size, it’s very easy to put the show behind you and get back to the work that has piled up since you left the office. In order to complete a successful trade show marketing plan, you first need to arrange to follow-up on all the leads you received and make sure your post-show marketing plans reinforce your image presented at the show.

Sales Follow-up

It seems logical to say that the first step is to follow-up on the leads you received, but the most common mistake companies make is to promote their attendance at a show, work the show and then never follow-up on the leads they receive. According to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, 80% of show leads are never followed up on! To avoid this, you must make lead follow-up a priority over just about everything else — including catching up on what you missed while you were out of the office. It goes without saying that your hot leads should be the first you follow up on, but make sure you have contacted all of your leads in one way or another within one week. Keep in mind that many other exhibitors will also be contacting them, so the earlier you get to them the better. It’s important to contact them while you are fresh in their mind. Also, remember to fulfill any promise you made to a prospect – sending literature, checking on a feature, etc.

There are a few different types of programs you can utilize to efficiently follow-up on your leads. What program you decide will work for your company should be based on your staff level and budget. Call campaigns are an excellent way to contact your hot leads, but this can take quite a bit of manpower. At the very least, you should absolutely make the effort to personally call the top prospects you met with. For the remainder of the leads, you can utilize either a post-show mailer program or email campaign. To ensure this is carried out in a timely manner, make sure to have the mailer designed or email written before you leave for the show. This way, when you return you have everything ready to be addressed and sent.

Maintain the Marketing Momentum

While exhibiting at the show, there are many different avenues you can take advantage of to promote your brand to your target audience. Between your booth design, collateral and sponsorships, you can make a lasting impression on your audience while making sure your message is integrated in every facet of your participation. However, the longevity of your marketing impact depends on what you do after you leave the show. After the show is a good time to re-evaluate your marketing focus and determine whether it meshes with what you achieved and observed during the show. If your products and services were well received at the show, then follow-up with targeted direct marketing. If, on the other hand, your prospect base feels unsure about your offering or doesn’t quite see its benefits, then follow-up with targeted advertising and public relations aimed at educating and reinforcing key messages. In fact, public relations, and specifically a well-executed post-show announcement, can go a long way in recapping your show successes and remind your targets what sets you apart from the competition and what business benefits they will derive from your solutions.

Remember, what you do after the trade show is an integral part of your overall sales and marketing effort. If you expect to show up at the show, and have your product sell itself, you will be disappointed. By the same respect, you cannot build lasting brand awareness by setting up a booth with a nice graphic and expect to ride out the year on your one presentation alone. As always, the key to getting the most from the show is to have that be the jumping point of your marketing plan, not the end. Use your participation at the show as a kickoff to many more impressions to follow.

Successful exhibiting is truly an example of needing to begin with the end in mind.

Envision has updated our master legal tech events calendar for 2008.  If you would like your event considered for listing, please let us know.

Envision Agency has unveiled the InsideLegal Summit, a boardroom-style business briefing event, exclusively focused on important business issues affecting the legal technology industry. The first event was hosted by Microsoft Corporation, February 4th, and covered the business side of the legal technology industry – what it is like to market to and do business in this space.  What made this event unique was the caliber of the attendees; the refreshing approach to topical discussions (debate formats and open forum); and the eclectic mix of topics – all selected based on various attendee and industry insider feedback.  Topics covered in the first event were:

• "Pay to Speak" trend – Some industry events are beginning to sell speaking opportunities to vendors in bundles with track sponsorships. 
• Industry consolidation – The trend of larger companies buying up smaller vendors. Large companies seeking “end-to-end” application via acquisitions/companies of all sizes being up on the auctioning block.  Is it every company’s goal to be an acquisition candidate?
• Vendor byline articles – Some publications are no longer (or never have) allowing vendors to contribute articles focused on industry trends, subject matter expertise or technology direction.
• UK/US legal industry comparison – What are the major differences between the two and how are companies adapting in their efforts to do business overseas.

This was the first in what is bound to be a successful series of summits throughout the year – each with different topics and formats.  If you are interested in attending a future InsideLegal Summit, please contact JoAnna Forshee with your contact information as well as any topic suggestions.

With the fragile state of the market today, it is imperative that companies work harder to ensure that their tradeshow dollars deliver solid return.  Companies are beginning to compete more for the attention of the attendees instead of sticking with the “Build a Booth and They will Come” attitude.

The first step is realizing that trade shows should function as an integrated part of your marketing plan and should not be expected to function on their own.  One of the number one ways that the law community interacts with brands today is in exhibit halls, and yet often companies neglect to integrate their branding and communication strategy with their trade show plans.  Booth design and graphics, collateral, messaging, giveaways and booth presentations should all be integrated with the brand identity you have built through your advertising and corporate identity programs.  Carry this through to your pre- and post-show promotions as well as onsite sponsorships and you will have a well-rounded trade show plan that will add to your marketing plan.

Do you have a pre-show strategy to draw traffic to your booth?  There are many ways to attract attendees to your booth before the show even begins.  Examples of these are direct mail campaigns, email and telemarketing campaigns, “register to win” programs and supplying free passes to your existing clients.  Once again, make sure whatever avenue you choose, it matches your branding and strategy for the show.  For example, if you send a pre-show mailer, make sure it matches the graphics on your booth.

Sponsorships can also be an excellent way to increase your participation at a show and draw traffic to your booth.  Usually, there are sponsorships at all price levels so you should be able to find one that will help you achieve your goals.  When selecting a sponsorship, call upon your show representative.  They can inform you of your options and help you decide what might best help you meet your objectives, although remember that it is their job to sell sponsorships first and foremost.  When it comes right down to it, use your own best judgment.  A $1,000 sponsorship that puts your logo on 1,000 napkins is probably not going to be worth the investment!

Since your booth staff can determine the success or failure of your entire tradeshow program, make sure you have clearly communicated your plan and goals for the show.  Also make sure your staff is delivering the correct message to the attendees.  This sounds obvious, but all too often companies assign employees to work the booth and they will not let you know if they are unsure of what to communicate.  Listen to their delivery to an attendee and see if you need to work with them more.

Of all the things you can do to improve your trade show return, adding or improving your post-show follow-up program might very well yield the most results.  It is all too common for an attendee who registered at a company’s booth to never receive a follow-up call.  Are you making sure your staff follows up on every lead you worked so hard to get?