Your Firm Won an Award: Now What? How to Leverage Different Content Types to Make Marketing Efforts Go Further

Imagine this: you are responsible for marketing or business development within your law firm, and after a lot of work, you and your firm (and all the lawyers in it) won an award. We both know that hundreds of emails, hours, and stress went into winning this accolade, so naturally, you want to promote it.

This is where things go wrong. The majority of law firms (both big and small) will typically promote these items once. That means that the hours of research, time, editing, approvals and attention that went into winning the award amount to one website post and one small social media post. Then that’s it.

This is where we say: work smarter, not harder.

The Strategy: Utilizing Content Types

When we say work smarter, not harder, we mean that every single piece of long-form content (e.g., an award submission) should amount to 4-5 pieces of short-form content, if not more. We like to think of it this way: for every award you win (or blog you write or podcast you create), you should ideally promote it through owned content, earned content, paid content, and shared content across your networks and channels.

Owned Content: Content you create and share on your owned channels (blogs, webinars, videos, case studies).

Earned Content: Content created by external sources without payment (awards, trade media, press releases).

Paid Content: Content you have paid for (ads, guest posts, influencers).

Shared Content: Content created by communities and shared (reviews, quotes, comments).

For example, if you won an award after a lengthy submission process – odds are you have amassed a host of content that can become lawyer spotlights (owned), testimonials (shared), blogs & videos (owned), press releases (earned), ads (paid), sponsored materials (paid) etc. Sharing these items on multiple platforms over the course of two months can fill your promotional calendar with half the work that winning five awards or writing five blogs may take.

Six Ways to Leverage an Award

If your firm recently won an award, below are six ways we recommend you use owned, paid, shared, and earned content to your advantage.

1. Your Website (Owned)

Some awards are just awards; you get them without much effort. Others require lengthy submissions that require testimonials, case specifics, community involvement, and/or research and findings.

These items should all, in one way or another, be added to your website as source content for other promotional items (i.e. long-form content that can be utilized elsewhere). Testimonials can be added to a testimonial page or to the lawyer’s bio page. The award itself should be promoted through a news post. Case specifics (if possible) would make fantastic case studies. Community involvement can and should be highlighted through a news post or spotlight, and research and findings should become blogs, articles, or whitepapers.

Creating these items is a big-time investment, but once it’s done, the other items on this list will come easily because you already have all the details you need to package them differently. Hence, you truly will be working smarter.

2. Social Media (Owned) – Multiple Posts

We are a firm believer that for every single website post, you should be sharing 2-5 social media posts to promote it. Typically, firms will promote an item once, linking out to the website. But there are so many additional ways to promote something.

For an award, we would potentially do the following:

1. Promote the award with a link to the website – consider this a congratulations post!
2. Share any testimonials that are public and can be shared.
3. If case studies were a part of the submission, create a carousel post or mini-social post detailing this.
4. If the lawyer is very involved in the community (and you had to amass all the details for the submission anyway), share details about this involvement (tagging the groups they are involved in may also lead to a reshare, which is fantastic for brand awareness!)
5. If the submission requires blogs, whitepapers, or research, share a host of content about this. Whether it’s promotional posts, infographics, videos, carousels, etc., utilizing that information in different ways is a surefire way to fill your social calendar with posts while sharing valuable content with your audiences. And the best part is that you will have it already from the submission, it’s just a matter of repackaging it.

3. Press Release and Media (Earned)

If an award is particularly prestigious or for something quite unique, a press release may be a fantastic way to gain earned media coverage. Media relations are tricky, so if you do decide to use this tactic, we recommend you spend some time determining which publications may pick it up and what journalists are likely to cover this content.

Pro Tip: If a media outlet does pick it up, reshare that on social media, too!

4. Ads and Sponsored Content (Paid)

A common item firms use to promote an award is paid ads and sponsored content. Often, firms share about the award in the form of print or digital ads. Ontario Reports and Canadian Lawyer are two common publications, but there are a host of trade and mainstream publications, in addition to billboards, physical ads, Google ads, etc., available, so keep an open mind and explore your options.

Another thing you may wish to do is to have the lawyer who won the award contribute to sponsored content. Whether written by them or by the publication, this is a great way to increase brand awareness.

5. Speaking Engagements, Webinars, and Lunch & Learns (Potentially Paid/Earned)

Winning an award is an industry qualifier, and it can be an excellent jumping-off point for having the lawyer or firm participate in conferences through speaking engagements, firm-hosted webinars, or client lunch and learns. This can be either paid or earned (i.e., you pay to participate as a speaker, or you pitch yourself and earn it), but either way, it is an excellent way to leverage the publicity from an award and make new connections.

This also makes fantastic, owned content through a news post or social post promoting the event.

6. Resharing Lawyer and Community Content (Shared)

The final component we recommend you do as a firm is leverage shared content. If a lawyer at your firm posted about an award they won, reshare it. If the issuing body made a post or wrote an article/news post about it, once again, reshare it. Although it may take a little effort to stay on top of your mentions or get your lawyers to engage in social media, utilizing shared content is an exceptional way to expand your brand presence and capitalize on the networks of those you are sharing about.

Working Smarter Takes Time – Cubicle Fugitive Can Help

Working smarter is certainly more strategic (and less time-consuming) – but that still doesn’t mean it is easy. At Cubicle Fugitive, we regularly work with law firms to develop effective communications plans for both their day-to-day marketing needs as well as for special projects, change management, and special events. Our team of strategists, designers, copywriters, and developers can take the burden off of you and help you implement a winning communications strategy that keeps you top of mind and drives firm growth.