It’s hard to weave storytelling into many kinds of thought leadership content—but not this one.
There’s a lot of talk out there about how attorneys and their firms should use storytelling in legal marketing and business development. This makes perfect sense, since people tend to remember stories far better than information fed to them in other forms.
But one aspect of storytelling that I’ve seen trip up attorneys and legal marketers is how to integrate it into thought leadership.
How exactly do you tell stories in your thought leadership content when that content covers recent court decisions, legislative proceedings, regulatory developments, or legal or business trends?
You don’t.
To incorporate storytelling into thought leadership content, you have to create content that focuses on the work you and your colleagues do for your clients.
Use “best practices” thought leadership articles as storytelling vehicles
Every favorable result you secure for a client is inspiration for thought leadership content about how you and your colleagues secured it. In the course of writing about a particular result, you’d give your target audiences a sample of the strategy and tactics you and your colleagues employed to secure it.
The best way to do that is through a ripped-from-the-headlines “best practices” article that walks through a challenge your client or a group of your clients faced and what you and your colleagues did to help them overcome it.
If written correctly, the article will tell a story.
The story starts with the situation the client was facing and why they needed your help. Here, you’re putting the reader in your client’s shoes, helping them see the world through your client’s eyes.
Next, the story turns to what you and your colleagues did to help the client navigate the situation favorably.
Finally, if applicable, the story ends with what the client achieved as a result of navigating the situation favorably.
The first part of the story hooks the reader, but the second part is the true legal marketing and business development effort.
In it, you’re establishing expertise and authority by framing the strategies and tactics you used as best practices for handling the type of situation your client was facing. And, you’re showing your target audiences the knowledge and wisdom you and your colleagues have by virtue of explaining how you handled that situation.
The beauty of writing a best practices article like this is that, because you’re telling a story, your audience will more easily digest what you’re telling them and remember it better than if you just listed all the ways you helped a client. If the reader sees themselves in your client, then you’re creating a connection with that reader, which will lead them to conclude that you’re the attorney to help them with similar issues should they ever face them down the road.
Don’t overthink what a “best practice” is
You might be thinking, “How do I know whether what we did was truly a ‘best practice’?” Objectively, you never will. There are no stone tablets sitting on a mountaintop somewhere listing the best practices for litigating certain cases or for managing certain deals.
Subjectively, it’s a different story. Any strategy or tactic you employ for a client is a “best practice.” After all, if you didn’t think it was the best option available to you, why did you employ it?
When you view your decision-making and actions through that prism, you’ll realize that you and your colleagues could publish many more best practices articles than you’re currently publishing.
Three misconceptions about best practices articles
In addition to questioning whether you employed best practices when working with your clients, I’m guessing you’re thinking there are three additional hurdles you’ll face when writing best practices articles.
As you’ll see, you shouldn’t sweat any of them.
First, you might be thinking this kind of article sounds like a promotional case study: “First, we did this. Then we did this. Next, we did this. Finally, we did this.”
That’s NOT what you’re going to be doing with a best practices article.
This is a thought leadership article, not a sales document. You’re not talking about “we, we, we.” You’re telling a story that educates the reader about the client’s situation. You’re then explaining the best practices in an objective and authoritative tone. It shouldn’t be in a “We were so smart because we did this” tone.
Second, you might be thinking that because you’re talking about how you handled a client situation or many client situations, you’re divulging your “secret sauce.”
That’s not something you should worry about here either.
As a reminder, your and your colleagues’ special sauce is based on (1) the knowledge you have, (2) the wisdom and experience you bring to the table, and then (3) your application of (1) and (2) to the specific facts and circumstances of a given situation a client is facing.
The best practices you employed and would discuss in an article are limited to the specific facts and circumstances of the client’s situation as you found it, including facts and circumstances that were not public. The best practices you’ll discuss are unique to the client’s situation when they brought you in, and may be based on facts, circumstances, and considerations you’re not going to share. (More on that in a moment). Readers aren’t going to be able to easily copy your strategies and tactics because their clients’ situations are unlikely to mirror your clients’ situations.
And, you need not tell the world everything you did. You and your colleagues are the writers and editors. You control the narrative and the best practices that you discuss. You need not recite a list of every action you took, nor get into the weeds of judgment calls you made or any other decisions you don’t feel comfortable discussing.
You can discuss your best practices at a high level. For the sake of keeping the word count of this kind of article to a reasonable number (say, 1000 to 1700 words), you’ll only want to discuss three to four best practices. I’m willing to bet there were more than three or four best practices you employed to handle any client situation.
Third and finally, you might be concerned about telling the client’s story and your best practices without disclosing privileged or confidential information.
As I just alluded to, you don’t have to dive so deeply into the client’s situation or what you did that you divulge information that could violate privilege or confidentiality. Nor do you have to disclose details that could identify clients. You can discuss situations your clients faced in a way that prevents readers from guessing their identities.
Taking a step back, if you’re concerned that the client might have an issue with how you discussed their matter, even when you took these precautions, you can always ask them for permission to discuss broadly how you helped them and then give them a chance to review your draft.
“Best practices” thought leadership articles are a best practice for storytelling in legal marketing
Storytelling can be a challenge for law firms’ marketing efforts, particularly their thought leadership efforts. But “best practices” thought leadership articles are the perfect vehicles for storytelling. Through them, attorneys and their firms can tell compelling stories about the legal or business challenges their clients faced and the best practices they employed to overcome them.
By discussing those best practices, attorneys will demonstrate their knowledge and wisdom in an educational, non-salesy way. And because they’re using stories to explain how they helped their clients, their target audiences will be more likely to understand the value the attorneys brought to their clients, making this thought leadership content a particularly effective marketing and business development tool.
Thinking about bringing on an outside writer to help your law firm strategize and create compelling thought-leadership marketing and business development content? Click here to schedule a 30-minute Content Strategy Audit to learn if collaborating with an outside writer is the right move for you and your firm.