Putting Online Personalization to Work for Law Firm Websites

17
Jul
2013

Sarah Levine Meyer

Thanks to advanced capabilities in content management systems, personalizing content has become more feasible on the web, and companies are taking advantage of the opportunity to more effectively target their audiences and deliver a more valuable website experience. Law firms utilize websites now more than ever as part of their marketing and business development initiatives. Many are investigating how they can best leverage the latest technology to enhance their marketing efforts and develop an effective content strategy that will assist in maintaining and developing the long-term relationships they work to establish with current and prospective clients. 

Why Personalize? Getting the Right Content to the Right People

As the volume of content on law firm websites continues to increase, it becomes more and more challenging for visitors to sift through and find the content that is specifically relevant to their interests. Personalization allows firms to assist the site visitor in finding the most valuable content and tailors the experience to their needs. Site visitors who know what they are looking for search for it. A search feature supports actively engaged users. Implicit personalization enables passive engagement by providing the firm the opportunity to present relevant content that the visitor may not know exists.

Personalization strategies should have the following high level goals:

• Provide more targeted communication and messaging.
• Encourage engagement with website visitors.
• Increase the visibility of the most valuable content. 
• Drive visitors to take action. This can be as simple as inspiring the visitor to read more of your valuable content, sign up for your newsletters, register for an event and/or contact the firm. 

How Does Personalization Work?

Personalizing content does not mean creating multiple versions of the same piece of content. Instead, it means positioning or delivering the content already being produced by the firm in a different way depending on the audience.

There are two general approaches to personalizing website content: explicit personalization and implicit personalization. My colleague, Jeff Small, provides an outline of each personalization technique in this article. Jeff goes into detail around specific examples of each technique, but the general takeaways are:

Explicit personalization involves the user of the site uniquely identifying themselves to the site, typically by logging in and providing information…Implicit personalization, on the other hand, targets content without the need for a site visitor to identify themselves by logging in or filling out a form.  

Based on data from surveys and measured adoption of explicitly personalized website sections, we find that personalization of content on a legal website is best implemented implicitly, without requiring a specific login step.

The available information you can leverage for the purpose of personalizing content can be described as one’s digital fingerprint, or data that the browser sends about the user – city, country, language, browser type, browser history, navigation path, etc. Implicit personalization analyzes each user’s digital fingerprint in real time to draw an impression of their interests and make decisions on the presentation of content on the site.

Getting Started

A user’s digital fingerprint holds information that can be used to infer things like where they are located and what their preferences may be. Once armed with this information about your users, you may be wondering where you should begin. The following example outlines a feasible scenario for any firm getting started with personalization. In this scenario, the objective is to drive the right people to a valuable piece of content that they may find relevant to their interests. 


Let's say a lawyer recently wrote an article about a timely topic, such as the America Invents Act. The firm wants to expand its patent work and therefore wants to ensure the right people know its capabilities in this space. Consequently, the marketing team wants to ensure that anyone who deals with patents reads this article. Employing a personalization strategy in the context of this article might look something like the following.

Using some available data points about the site visitor, such as the search keywords that brought them to your site and/or the pages within the site that they visit, you identify that site visitor 1 is interested in Intellectual Property Litigation, site visitor 2 likely works within the pharmaceutical industry and visitor 3 is interested in corporate real estate. Based on your personalization efforts, on the next page that each of these site visitors navigate to, they see a different promoted highlight:

• Site visitor 1: You promote the America Invents Act article, and you position it as: Learn what the America Invents Act means for your patent procedures and litigations.
• Site Visitor 2: You promote the same America Invents Act article and you position it as: Understand how to preserve your First-to-Invent patent applications filed before March 16.
• Site Visitor 3: You promote something different entirely.

By positioning content in a manner that is aligned with the site visitor’s interests, you increase the likelihood that they will click through to read more.

Guidelines for Effective Personalization 

Because the data utilized with implicit personalization is data that the site visitor likely doesn’t even realize you have, it’s important to use it appropriately.

• When personalizing implicitly, the site visitor should not realize you are ‘personalizing’ or targeting the content towards them. 
• What you provide to the visitor through personalizing content should be a value-add for them; something they will appreciate. 
• Leverage data that can tell you about the visitor's needs and interests.
• Avoid telling the user about themselves.

Avoid Getting Too Personal … With Personalization

With implicit personalization, if you are too direct about what you know and how you are targeting someone, you run the risk of making them feel uncomfortable. For example, let’s say you decide to leverage the site visitor's IP address and, by doing so, are able to identify his or her company.  If on the next page he or she visits, you promote the America Invents Act article and position it as: "Learn What Impact First-to-File Will Have On Your Patent Filing Procedures at [Company Name]," you’re probably crossing the line. Including the visitor's company name does not actually add any benefit to the visitor, it simply alerts the user that it’s feasible to identify their company as they browse the web. Don’t show off your knowledge of your visitors; instead, use your knowledge of them to their benefit. 

A firm’s personalization strategy should evolve over time, growing more dynamic than the basic example outlined above. Targeting content towards visitor's interests in order to help them find what will be of most value to them is a smart strategy that firms can employ. Begin to draw conclusions about your site visitors by following their behavior as they navigate through your site. Based on those conclusions you can adjust what is presented to them and continually serve up relevant content. Just remember, if it's obvious you are tracking what someone does on the web, or worse - who they are, you are likely going to cause some discomfort. Stick to the guidelines above, and you will be in good shape.