• by Ray Schultz , June 1, 2017

Law firms suffer from information overload and lack of staff enggement when pursuing content marketing, according to a study from Greentarget and Zeughauser Group. Yet 81% expect to produce more content this year, and some of it will appear in practice-group newsletters, presumable by email.  

Of the 114 respondents to the corporate counsel part of the survey, 67% find practice group newsletter content the most valuable. However that number declined from 76% in 2016 and 77% in 2014.

The most valued content – for 87% — comes in the form of client alerts. This number has risen by ten percentage points over that of 2016. However, the study does not specify how the alerts are delivered.

Website content has dropped to 22% in terms of value, down from 39% last year.

Asked to rate the best content distribution sources, the respondents cited blogs, traditional media, LinkedIn, Legal news aggregators, Facebook, YouTube, other video platforms, Wikipedia and online lawyer listing services.

Law firms are spending more on content marketing-- 49% will increase their budgets in 2017, and the same percentage will maintain the prior year’s. Only 2% will decrease their spend.

Of those polled, 50% are investing in practice-group newsletters this year, compared to 91% that will spend on social media. In addition, 91% will budget for website content, and 83% for blogs. 

However, only 26% of the firms have a documented content sstrategy, and 45% have undocumented strategies.

Overall, their biggest challenges include:

Lack of engagement from attorneys within the firm—46%

Lack of staff time – 26%

Lack of dedicated professional to oversee content marketing effots – 13%

Lack of talented writers and other staff – 9%

Other—4 

Budget – 2%

Lack of support from firm leadership – 0%

As for information overload, 47% say it is a big problem and another 47% that it is somewhat of a problem.

Methodology: In addition to the 114 corporate counsel surveyed, the companies polled 53 CMO/marketers. Some percentages exceed 100% because respondents were asked to check all that apply.