When I was an in-house marketer at a law firm, I did quite a few paid LinkedIn campaigns. Often, I’d get stuck on where to point the reader: to our website? A blog post? A specially built landing page?
I’d go all-in with link shorteners and UTM parameters. The information this gave our firm was often only useful to me, the strategist, who used the data to make technical decisions for the next campaign.
One day, it hit me: why wasn’t I using links from our JD Supra-hosted content?
Not only does this approach give me the basic analytics websites or social channels provide, it also gives me even richer data for business development – a huge value to my lawyers.
Here’s why you, too, should share JD Supra links in your next content-driven campaign.
1. Generate actionable reader data that highlights business opportunities
JD Supra is focused on promoting business growth for professional services firms, so valuable reader data is collected (from a huge readership) that can provide you with the company, title, and yes, even name, of the people engaging with your content. LinkedIn is the only platform that comes close to giving you that kind of information, which only shows the company name (if it surpasses a threshold).
Not only that, but JD Supra vets the VIPs, marking them as notable contacts and prioritizing them in your admin dashboard. A human does that, not an AI tool, so you know the recommendation is credible. All you/your lawyers have to do is reach out. (More on that in my next post on how to extract BD data after running such a campaign.)
The takeaway: using one of your JD Supra links in a strategic content campaign translates into rich, actionable analytics
2. Boost your credibility through third-party validation
Thanks to the platform's many daily readers and subscribers, the fact that you’re sharing a JD Supra link also gives your campaign an extra boost in visibility. But that's not all. Yes, you may consider JD Supra as a paid platform, but you cannot overpay for the kind of credibility they’ve built with readers, including other attorneys.
Don’t take my word for it: the next time one of your authors is chosen for a JD Supra editorially curated email, or receives a Reader's Choice award, pay attention to their reaction.
At this point, with such a focus on publishing quality thought leadership, JD Supra is seen as a third-party validation of content and expertise: the equivalent of landing a quote in a national newspaper or getting listed in one of those infamous rankings.
The takeaway: JD Supra's credibility flows through and becomes part of the value of your campaign.
3. On JD Supra, it’s still your web property: you get the brand awareness
It’s the best of both worlds – validation of a third-party site but brand and CTAs that are all yours. And you know what you won’t find? Links to another firm’s content or personalized ads.
All engagement with your content leads back to your authors, your firm, and (via rich analytics) you and your team.
Unlike most sites that give you third-party credibility, JD Supra’s platform allows for firm branding so you don’t lose out on recognition. There are links to contact your firm’s author and visit other firm properties. In other words, every piece of your firm's content on JD Supra is already like a landing page – your landing page – to get the reader to click further into your firm and author.
The takeaway: sharing JD Supra content shouldn’t be a secondary choice. You own your JD Supra presence, it is an important element in your constellation of web properties, and the analytics provide you and your team a giant step toward new business.
And a bonus takeaway: portable analytics...
This approach to ad campaigns becomes even more powerful when you consider that JD Supra also offers an analytics API, allowing you to automatically pull all of your reader data into your internal firm dashboards. A win-win!
[*This is the why. In part of two, I'll dive into exactly how I use JD Supra analytics to find BD opportunities after running an ad campaign. Stay tuned...]
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A law firm marketer with 20 years of in-house experience, Laura Guiterrez is JD Supra's Director of Referral Partnerships. Connect with her on LinkedIn.