"There’s a strategic intersection between business development and public relations upon which attorneys should focus."

It has been a busy season for Gina Rubel and her award-winning marketing, communications, and PR agency.

Fresh on the heels of celebrating their twenty-year anniversary serving law firms and other organizations across a broad spectrum of sectors and industries, Furia Rubel recently announced an international expansion, with new partners throughout Europe. Practicing her own exemplary version of "everyday PR," besides serving her clients, Gina also manages to host a much-lauded podcast and – as it happens – author books.

We recently checked in with Gina about her new book, Everday PR, whose subtitle reads Harnessing Public Relations to Build Relationships, Brands & Businesses. Intrigued by a title that suggest an entire way of being, we wanted to learn more. Here is what we heard back:

"Everyday PR" seems to embody a strategy, an approach, that leaves nothing to chance ("every day"). What are you capturing in that all-encompassing title?

That’s precisely it. Public relations is not something you just do once and forget about it. Public relations includes activities as well as a state of mind.

We interact with “publics” – in other words groups of people – every day. From the most routine personal engagements with our family members and friends to more strategic interactions with colleagues, clients, prospects and the media, every interaction is with an audience. They should always be meaningful.

Public relations includes activities as well as a state of mind.

One way of engaging every day is to keep your email signature updated with your contact information and a link to your latest blog, podcast, speaking engagement, or other thought leadership content. This is an everyday form of communication.

One way to do this is to have a “P.S.” line in your email signature with a call to action. Example: P.S. Listen to my latest podcast on How to Refine Your Corporate Culture Through Radical Candor and Inclusivity with NY Times Best-Selling Author Kim Scott at www.OnRecordPR.com.

This drives recipients of your email to your website content and will be welcomed especially when the topic is relevant to something they are dealing with or something they anticipate.

In addition to small ways to engage with your business audience, think about your personal brand. I used to speak to corporations and lawyers about networking, which can be considered a form of business development and PR. I asked groups of lawyers how each of them answered the question, “What do you do?” The answer was always, “I’m a lawyer.”

To that, I’d respond, “So what?”

Lawyers need to be more specific – every day. How about a response tailored to the clients you represent? A corporate M&A attorney might say, “I work with Fortune 500 companies helping them navigate legal matters related to mergers and acquisitions.” An intellectual property attorney might say, “I work with biotech companies and help them to protect their intellectual property portfolio.” This is another form of “Everyday PR.”

We’re presenting solutions and expertise.

Another reason I named the book “Everyday PR” is because it’s a practice, a habit as you will, that lawyers should get into regularly. It does not mean that you issue a press release every day or that you call a reporter every day. It means that you follow and engage with the media regularly, you stay on top of industry trends, you share anecdotes and observations on social media, you share thought leadership, and you develop a reputation for an area of expertise to nurture your personal brand.

This way, when there is a story that a journalist should be calling you about, there is a plethora of information out there on the topic with your name attached to it.

How do you present yourself authentically while being strategic and without coming off as a sales rep?

Presenting one’s expertise should always be authentic and should never be “salesy.” We’re not selling widgets. We’re presenting solutions and expertise. Attorneys are there to help their clients and make their lives better. However, if the client or prospect doesn’t know you exist or that you have a particular niche, they’ll never reach out when they have a need. That’s one of the opportunity costs of not conducting public relations.

If you incorporate authentic language in your messaging on a daily basis, it will never be salesy...

In marketing and PR, as in psychology, we refer to message primacy, relevancy and frequency. I would add message authenticity to round out the quartet. Primacy refers to initial messaging or being the first to present a message. Relevancy refers to presenting messages applicable to the recipient and the situation. Frequency refers to the idea that most people need to see a message seven times or more before it sticks in their brains. And authenticity is simply the integrity of the message. If you incorporate authentic language in your messaging on a daily basis, it will never be salesy – something that is a big turn-off to lawyers and clients alike.

If PR is a daily state of mind for lawyers, where does strategy come into play?

In the book, I liken PR strategy to building a house. You have to know what you want, what you want to accomplish, why you want it, and how much time/energy you want to invest in the process.

You need to have a plan. Define your goals, identify your target audience, determine your key messages (and please don’t say that you do everything for everyone), then have a strategy with tactics that you will actually employ. For example, if you love to write and don’t like public speaking, then the tactics of the PR plan should focus on writing and vice versa.

A PR plan should supplement a business development plan and should be something the attorney looks at regularly.

All too often, a lawyer will tell us that they want to be quoted in The New York Times or one of the leading legal trade publications, and yet they’ve never interacted with the media. They believe they are the number one expert on a particular topic. If we were to simply pitch that person to the media, without a significant story to tell, we would get laughed at.

The reporter will immediately Google the attorney, look at their LinkedIn page and check out their firm bio. What they find is a bio that was drafted a decade ago, and that attorney with two decades of significant experience has a one-paragraph bio that says they can practice in four states, 15 courts, and where they got their degrees from. On LinkedIn, the profile is relatively nonexistent, and a Google search shows that the lawyer has never published anything or been quoted. How are we going to quickly validate this attorney in the eyes of the journalist when there’s so little to go on?

Put another way, if a lawyer were searching for a trial expert, are they going to consider someone whom they can’t find out much about with a simple internet search?

A PR plan should supplement a business development plan and should be something the attorney looks at regularly. Even updating their bio and LinkedIn profiles quarterly would make a big difference.

How do you incorporate public relations into business development?

Public relations programs are built on effective storytelling, and compelling storytelling is what persuades prospective clients to engage with a law firm. Public relations is an element of business development. It’s about client retention and acquisition, awareness, education, persuasion, and thought leadership. From a law firm perspective, it’s also about talent retention and acquisition.

It’s about client retention and acquisition, awareness, education, persuasion, and thought leadership.

Public relations is about positioning the firm or the attorney. It’s about landing relevant stories, placing the right articles, and disseminating pertinent thought leadership to support their business goals. It’s also about sharing that thought leadership. It should also support revenue growth, market share increases, and awareness. There’s a strategic intersection between business development and public relations on which attorneys should focus.

I hear you saying that lawyers should regularly engage in public relations. How do they measure their efforts?

Public relations measurement and evaluation are essential to determining the effectiveness or value of a strategic public relations plan or effort. It is one of the most discussed, evolving, and challenging issues in the PR industry.

In the short term, public relations measurement and evaluation involve assessing the success or failure of programs, strategies, activities, or tactics by measuring the outputs, outtakes, and outcomes against the predetermined set of objectives.

Outputs are the most basic form of measurement. They evaluate what you produced and how you did in producing it. Was it on time? On budget? On message? For public relations this often means measuring the number of media placements, which is a starting point.

Outtakes focus on who was reached instead of what was produced. How many people read the article? Who printed or downloaded the blog? How many media outlets showed up for the press conference?

The most challenging and essential form of measurement are outcomes which look at changed behaviors attributable to one’s efforts. Who called the office for more information? Who became a client? Who referred business? Which clients increased their business? Did you generate more qualified leads year over year?

How are you different from other similarly situated attorneys?

In the long term, public relations measurement and evaluation involve assessing the success or failure of much broader efforts that were formulated to improve and enhance the relationships that attorneys and their clients maintain with key clients and the media.

There is no all-encompassing research tool or technique that will measure and evaluate public relations effectiveness. Measuring media content, for example, can provide insight into how much exposure your messages received, but it cannot, by itself, measure whether your target audience responded to the messages or if your company has grown as a result.

One final question. If an attorney only had time to do one thing to increase their name recognition, what should it be?

That’s the most challenging question of all because not everyone likes to write or speak to an audience or even speak to the media.

So those things aside, I would say they should update their website bios and LinkedIn profiles to focus on their unique selling propositions.

Answer these questions: How are you different from other similarly situated attorneys? What do you bring to the table that others don’t? How do you help clients to avoid and solve legal problems? What information can you share with clients that is relevant and timely, so they know you are on top of their needs, interests and industries? Attorney bios and social networking profiles are free real estate.

Take advantage of them.

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You can order "Everday PR" on Amplify Publishing, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble