Thursday, June 07, 2007

The New Yellow Pages

As an attorney with a substantial web presence, I frequently get solicited regarding listing on other websites. This ranges from sites like "personalinjurylawyers -dot- com" on what I would call the lower end of the scale (in terms of ethics) to "lawyers -dot- com" and "findlaw -dot- com" on the higher end.

I got an e-mail solicitation from lawyers-dot-com today, the text of which is below. What you can't see is that the message had various terms in bold, usually in color - either red or blue. While I did not find this particular solicitation too bad, note the clear message: "Since you do not have a full listing with us, it could be costing your firm revenue ...." That is marketing through fear.

The message also included an image that I will not bother including here. It was a bar graph that really didn't make a lot of sense.

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Greetings Counselors!

Do your search statistics from our websites - Martindale.com and Lawyers.com look like this? -


Since you do not have a full listing with us, it could be costing your firm revenue - from new and existing clients.

Please call/email me if you are curious as to what your search statistics are, were, and have been in the past.

If you are contemplating a full listing with Martindale-Hubbell once again, here are 10 reasons to do the listing now -

#1 - As an Internet Marketing Specialist, I look to enhance the listing to maximize exposure in an already proven medium
#2 - Making sure you have Preferred placement on Lawyers.com with a 1 page site that will drive web traffic to your existing website
#3 - Make sure you have all sub-category AOP's listed so your firm shows up in more searches than other attorneys already listed with us
#4 - Make sure appropriate icons are added to Lawyers.com listing to get more profile views
#5 - Add pictures and/or logos to Martindale.com and Lawyers.com to make listing stand out more
#6 - Help with the tagline on Lawyers.com to make listing bigger and more appealing without increasing the cost
#7 - Help facilitate the rating review process if it makes sense
#8 - Expedite the order so we can have listings and website up within 2 weeks
#9 - Offer you a complimentary($255 Value) Cross-Reference in a city that you are looking to bring business in from
#10 - If you plan to give a full listing a chance to help grow your business once again, this is a better time than next year to do it. - Prices will only increase.

As a returning subscriber, we can offer delayed billing for 90 days and interest-free monthly billing.

There are approximately 500,000 attorneys listed with us, and I'm sure many of your competitors. I think it is an investment that most attorneys can't afford not to be listed.

Thank You for your time and consideration.

[Name Omitted]
Account Executive
Martindale-Hubbell
121 Chanlon Road
New Providence, NJ 07974

[Phone/fax omitted]

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