BluShark Digital - Law Firm Marketing

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of McCraw Law Group.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with BluShark Digital LLC?

I needed someone to help with web development. I was working with a team that wasn’t bad, but we weren’t getting the in-depth level of service I knew I needed. The plan was to build my firm around the platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team at BluShark Digital LLC was originally hired to do our web work. Over time, it’s become a monthly aspect we do with them. They don’t just put web pages together and build links, but I look at potential areas for growth. They give me an analysis of the relative strength of competitors.

If I want to get specific on some of the pages to hit a particular silo or practice area that we do, they’ve been great about building out the silos and working with us to make sure. We’ve been working with them to get a video that will match the critical pages to help them rank it better also. We did PPC with their team.

They do a lot of SEO work, making the right keywords present. They explain it in a way to cultivate the backlinks. They will get together with us to think of good opportunities in the community. If we get with them and say we’re sponsoring a golf tournament for a local charity, they work to build backlinks off of that.

Every year, we do a scholarship for first responders. They market that for us with universities to get us applicants for that scholarship and to build backlinks when we’re doing it.

They really encourage us to continue to do more in the community because not only do we accomplish the goals of the groups we’re working with, but at the same time, they make sure that it’s benefiting our company as well. They make it a win-win for us.

I get 12-15 pages of good content every single month that gets published. We do blogs and entries that they’ll optimize for us. They make sure and update our site with videos that we’re doing to support the pages.

They do all the analysis that goes with it. We’re trying to build a good video library that’s going to supplement what they’re doing. Over time, I think it will add considerable dividends to it and will put us miles ahead of everybody else.

How did you come to work with BluShark Digital LLC?

I attended a mastermind group with some other lawyers where I met one of their founders. I interviewed three or four of my peers, who were customers of theirs. Every one of them said if I would invest the time with them and follow up with them, they will be responsive. BluShark Digital promised that the platform would build up my firm.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $3,800 each month.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with BluShark Digital started in September 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

It’s a strategic relationship. I give 100% to it, and they give 100% back. I couldn’t be happier with them.

They do exactly what they say they’re going to do and when they say they’re going to do it. Over the last 2-3 years, it’s been very rewarding. We see the impact of it on the bottom line. At the time, it was just myself and another lawyer that I hired.

We now have 13 full-time employees, and we’re about to add a 14th. We’re on track to do 200 new cases this year. We had our best month in June despite COVID-19. Most of the people in my industry are down 30-40% due to COVID-19; by the end of June, we were back to where I’d hoped we would be setting my forward-looking goals.

Last year, we did 158 cases. The year before that, we were right at 100 new cases. This year we’re on track to do 200, but in June alone, we did 30. The quality of the cases has been excellent as well. They’re proactive about building links, doing it in a real and authentic way.

How did BluShark Digital LLC  perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re more of a strategic partner than just a vendor. We meet with them every month to go over what we have done, what we’re going to do, areas of concern, and areas of potential growth.

We go over the web performance for the month prior, including phone calls, click-throughs, people who filled out electronic forms, etc. They send us what they have, including a Google Analysis. My marketing teammate and I will both review that.

We look for things that may have differences or overages. In our meeting, we’ll go through those items one by one. The exercise is more akin to figuring out what is moving the needle both positively or negatively, so we can adjust. We end up making deliverables based no whatever we run into. It allows us to monitor things that we simply need to be monitoring anyway, like internet site speed.

If we see it slowing down, we look at it and consider if we need to code the site differently to increase the speed. As a result of having meetings like that, not only do we have ideas from them about things, but we came up with a few ideas.

Timelines and deadlines have been reasonable. Now and then, we have to bump something for a week, but it’s nothing that upsets me. Typically, when I have something like that, there’s usually a very good reason for it. The first couple of times they didn’t, I jumped all over them about it and let them know that we’re managing this every month, and we’re going to make sure we get it done, and we have. We use phone and email to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their desire to get deep in the weeds as you want to get is impressive. If you want to become an expert in your field and want to build your firm around a digital presence, they will be there with you to teach you. I told them I’m a great person to be a beta tester. If they’ve got something they want to test, by all means, let’s figure it out, check it, and I’m not going to bite their head off if it comes out badly.

I’d rather us at least be on the forefront and test stuff because now and then, you’re going to hit something incorrectly, and you don’t know until you get into it.

They’ve been very responsive in helping build out the Spanish version of our site. We went back and forth on that because they were big believers in what I call the easy way of hitting the translate button. I hired somebody to make sure and read those translations and to make changes we need to make. That way, the sites would mirror each other in a way that makes sense to Spanish speaking readers in our area. That took a little bit of work for them to really see the value of that, but we have to do that in this locale.

Are there any areas they could improve?

A lot of the improvements they’re going to have to make are going to be marginal. It’s going to be in knowing the local markets better and better.

They’ll need to figure out what is working in one market versus working in another market. They’ve experienced such incredible growth over the last couple of years. We started off with a lot of generic stuff, but they’re already improving in that area. I’m happy with what’s happening.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re attempting to get into the digital market, you need to go in with a mature mindset. Your mindset can’t be that you’re going to spend $3,800 or $4,000 on month one, and if you don’t see 10 cases this month, then I’m dropping them. A lot of people go in very short-sighted. This is a strategic investment, and it takes months for this to pay off if you do it right, especially if you do it with the SEO and the pages.

Look at digital marketing as a long-term solution, not as a short-term fix for cases or cash flow or new customers. It might seem slow at first, but when you look back over 12 months or 24 months, it builds on itself. The quality that you get upfront, the more you demand high quality as you go. There’s a snowballing effect to this, especially in digital marketing. That’s the area I wouldn’t go cheap on. If you’re going to spend all this money to make the phones ring, have a very good system for CRM and make sure you keep on top of folks whenever they do call in.

If you want to build it right, they are someone you certainly should consider using because they have the technical ability to do it, and they’ll work with you on it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Managing Partner at a small law firm focused on personal injury, family law, criminal defense, and bankruptcy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BluShark Digital LLC?

We needed a comprehensive approach for SEO in two markets for our two city law firm. BluShark took the task in the beginning and ran with it to tremendous success. They are responsive to new developments and have been integral to the growth of our firm.

What were your goals for this project?

SEO focused lead generation with assistance on PPC campaigns.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I met the company co-founder at a conference prior to the formation of Blushark in early 2016.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Website buildout Content development SEO Management PPC Management

What was the team composition?

I have worked with the managing partner

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Continued growth in page views and search rank for our domains.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Fantastic communication and production timelines.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They paid close attention to detail and had a deep knowledge of SEO.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No.