“Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.” – Steven Spielberg

Late last year at the inaugural LMA Mid-Atlantic Conference, in a presentation titled "You Don't Just Buy Tech, You Live It," we discussed our real-world challenges and successes with technology. Whether we as legal marketers like it or not, the reality is that we are all 'tech people' now.

...we are all 'tech people' now.

We acknowledge this is difficult; change is hard! Going into a room of successful people — ahem, lawyers — and telling them their paradigm needs to change… The odds are against us.

But, what would motivate them to listen? If we use technology to change the way we share and leverage information about our firms in order to create a more meaningful client experience, change will happen.

When working on a specific initiative, step outside of the “project tunnel.”

Look around, and confirm that your marketing team, the working group of attorneys and other professionals involved in the project are on the same page. Keep your eye on the prize and help those around you see the benefits ahead. Confirm that they understand the pain points and can articulate the positives and navigate the negatives. Communicate progress and successes, great and small. Don’t be afraid to admit when something isn’t working. The team you build will be equipped to be your problem solvers and the advisors in this process.

In order to maximize our technologies, emphasis must be placed on the business case.

We often focus on this when requesting approval for a new technology, but it’s imperative to do so at every stage of the project, even after a successful launch. Embracing a new technology is a disruptive change for a firm, and we need to address it as such via change management principles such as training, guidelines, and being positive stewards of the new technology. Highlight its positive results and value to other departments and attorneys. Most important, when you launch it, don’t walk away. Live in the “on” stage, and leverage the information gleaned for even more positive results.

Below are a few “tech recipes” and how we made it work at our firms:

Websites: Your website may be brand new, or you may feel it’s awful. Either way, use it! Maximize your attorney biographies. Post to your news or knowledge center daily. Make your content and SEO power work for you. This is one key example of living in the “on” stage. Your website should never stop changing.

Blogs: Attorneys not giving you content? Make it up. All joking aside, leverage sponsorships, programs they’ve presented, events you’ve attended and alumni magazine mentions. Anything. Aim for posting at least twice a month.

Email Automation: Get those newsletters out. Measure the open rates, look at the data, share it with your attorneys, and help further refine the next round of content based on your subscribers’ interests.

Social Media: Get on social media (and, don’t be afraid of Facebook). Tag your attorneys (but, ask them first). And if you have a decent network of your own, cross-share. Build a network with media in the legal space and industries in which your attorneys focus. You will see the impact and create motivation for your attorneys to be involved.

Contact Relationship Management (CRM): If you can get approval for an investment and it doesn’t already exist, push for CRM or some equivalent to track your client contact info. You may be surprised but many firms still do not track this vital information. (Don’t forget those pain points mentioned!) CRMs come in all shapes and sizes now. Connect with your professional colleagues in LMA to learn about what’s worked and what hasn’t for firms of different sizes, different budgets and other considerations.

Webinars/Podcasts: Augment the written word with the spoken word. Webinars are inexpensive (and even free through some outside offerings like Strafford Publications) and can be promoted before and after as events. Podcasts offer client convenience and minimize attorney stress due to their short nature and opportunity to listen on the way to work, etc.

Experience: It doesn’t have to be an off-the-shelf solution. Start with a coalition of the willing, the groups that have a pain point and are willing to work with you to solve it. Identify critical pieces of information that will allow you to gain insights from other sources of information such as client-matter numbers. Design with your future end-product in mind, not just solving today’s problem.

Added Bonuses: And, no matter what, content can and should be repurposed on all of your channels. Boost the social posts by targeting your audiences; impact can be had for as little as $50.

Remember: Implementation of technology — and promoting/monitoring thereafter — is KEY. Listen to your users, and modify and update as needed. Report regularly to your internal stakeholders on your successes, challenges and the value provided.

With apologies to Gandhi, exemplify the change you want to see in your world.

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[Rachel Shields Williams is Senior Manager of Experience Management, Sidley Austin, LLP; Terra Liddell is Chief Marketing Officer at Finnegan; and Roy Sexton is Director of Marketing at Clark Hill PLC. This post was originally written for the fourth quarter 2018 LMA Mid-Atlantic Region newsletter.]