Content Marketing: Can your firm “COPE” with this strategy for marketing success?

By Edith Reinhardt

Create once, publish (or promote) everywhere – or “COPE” – is a key marketing strategy that lawyers often overlook.

The idea is to take every piece of content developed for marketing or educational purposes at a firm and share it widely through multiple marketing channels and in different formats to get maximum visibility. Generating content is difficult and time-consuming. Implementing COPE saves time and resources. It also enables content to reach more people. The result is a better return on investment than any other marketing technique.

How to COPE

With COPE, firms push out their content using three types of media: “Owned,” “earned,” and “paid.”

Owned media refers to marketing channels the owner of the content controls. In law firm marketing that means the firm’s website, blog, social media pages, direct mail, email, videos and self-hosted seminars, webinars, and podcasts. Since the firm is in control, the content can be shared how and when the firm wants. In addition, as long as the information continues to be accurate, it can be repromoted multiple times days, weeks, months, or even years after it was originally created. This is valuable because people may have missed the content the first time or they saw it but forgot about it because it wasn’t relevant to them at that moment. At a later point, it may be just what they are looking for.

Earned media is publicity that a firm receives without directly paying for it. For example, the content may be published in a legal journal; the author is quoted in the news media; individuals may like, comment or repost the content on social media; or the author may be invited to speak on the topic at an event. Since a third party is sharing the content, it has added credibility and visibility.

Paid media is advertising-related, including search engine and social media ads, sponsored content and events, and other purchased means of exposure.

The key point is that law firms should use as many of these outlets as appropriate and possible to reach the most people.

COPE, repurpose, and COPE again

To further maximize COPE, firms can repurpose the content, publish the new version and promote it again. For example, the original content can be remade into other formats. A blog can often be turned into a video, or a presentation into an article for print or an online platform. Content can also be revised for different audiences. Information for lawyers can be rewritten for nonlawyers or adapted for novices, experts or those in different industries. Short and long versions can also be created. The material can also be updated periodically to reflect changes in the law, to add new examples or to discuss the latest trends.

Repurposing does require some additional work. However, it’s much easier and less time-consuming to adapt existing content than to produce something from scratch.

Every time the content is repurposed, it can be republished and repromoted using owned, earned, and paid media. This is particularly true on social media. Multiple social media posts can be developed from the content every time it is changed by pulling out excerpts or writing a new summary.

Do not fear repetition

This technique may seem repetitive. However, repetition is crucial in marketing. Studies show that a person needs to hear or read a message several times before it sticks. People forget what they have read or heard. By providing the information multiple times, it is more likely to be remembered.

In addition, individuals are unlikely to see or read the content every time it is published because they are busy, may not like the format or some other reason. For instance, they may delete emails but read LinkedIn posts or watch videos and ignore text. Even if they see it every single time, no one has the time to compare the different versions of the content and judge whether they are too similar, especially if they are spaced out when they are shared.

A COPE strategy can tremendously improve the return on investment on content marketing. It enables firms to get the most value out of content to attract attention, build the firm’s reputation, and stay top of mind with referral sources to get more business.

 

 

Edie Reinhardt, Esq. is principal of RDT Content Marketing, which specializes in helping attorneys showcase their expertise and target their marketing to attract more clients. She can be reached at [email protected].