Mark Messing, Duane Morris's CMO, kindly joined me on the Legal Marketing Studio's last episode of 2016. What was originally intended to be a conversation focused on the way Duane Morris uses print publications within (and throughout) its marketing ended up covering quite a bit more ground. Mark generously shared his thoughts on the relationships between marketing, business development and business process; forging strong client relationships; building engaging pitch teams (and the need for them to rehearse!); the balance between a given marketing tool's aesthetic value vs functional value; and where Mark sees the legal industry and legal marketing moving over the next few years. All in all, lots of really interesting insights in this fascinating podcast.

This episode isn't just for legal marketing vendors; in-house marketers and event solo attorneys, too, will find value in Ann Heatherington's tips. My conversation with Ann boils down to building strong relationships. Vendors need to build strong relationships with in-house support staff (marketing, business development and admin)and these in-house folks need to build strong relationships with their attorneys. Candid conversations can help all sides achieve their goals.

A constant theme in conversations with attorneys on the Legal Marketing Studio is the increasing need to be a proactive partner who adds value to a client's business. In this episode, Michael Zullo, a partner in Duane Morris's Trial Practice Group, discusses the firm's Dispute Navigation Analytics (DNA) tool. Our conversation centers on the value the tool presents to Duane Morris's clients in terms of the clarity it offers them in their decision making process, while touching also on the marketing value it presents to the firm.

Attorney Kenneth Rashbaum of Barton LLP generously made time to sit down with the Legal Marketing Studio to discuss the shifts that he's seen in his thirty plus years practicing the law, specifically the ways in which the rapid technological advances during that time have affected the legal industry. These changes have created both opportunities and risks for law firms from both marketing and business standpoints as well as for their clients. Ken describes the business, legal, marketing and ethical reasons for engaging with technological advancements and integrating them into one's practice. Along the way, he also touches on the increasing need to provide value for clients and to communicate effectively with them (and everyone else).

At the heart of nearly all marketing materials are words. How well those words are written will determine how effectively they reach the intended audience. Edie Reinhardt and I sat down to discuss writing well, writing with purpose and writing to strategic effect. With a background in both the law and publishing, Edie has a unique perspective on how to tailor one's writing for a particular audience in a consistent, personal voice and maintain that writing over the long time span required of content marketing. Whether you're writing for a legal audience composed of other lawyers or seeking to reach potential clients who are not legal experts, you'll find plenty of insight in this conversation.

Photography is a powerful medium that fuels the web. I believe that there is so much potential for law firms to better use photography in amplifying their marketing messages that I invited one of my competitors, David Lubarsky, onto the podcast to discuss how firms can help us to conceive and create powerful images that integrate into their marketing materials. My conversation with David covers conceptualization, pre-production, post-production and, inevitably, our personal projects.

Robert Weiss of MultiVision Digital discusses the ways in which video can support or even drive a firm's marketing. Our conversation in this episode covers the strategy, distribution and content aspects of creating and using video well. Robert suggests ways that firms can maximize the impact of their videos and do so within a set budget. The key takeaways are that now is the time to start using video and that firms should be developing a video strategy and broadcasting content regularly.

Valeria Paik, the VP of Business Development at TAG Online, joins me on this episode of the Legal Marketing Studio to go over website hosting for law firms. We discuss the importance of reliable, fast and secure web hosting in this age of interconnectedness where one's website is the central hub from which the spokes of social media feeds, rich content channels and back office systems radiate. She talks about the many questions that law firms should be asking of their web host or of their design, marketing or branding agencies who are hiring a web host on behalf of the firm.

The Legal Marketing Studio is on vacation. We will be back with new episodes starting September 2nd and have a great line up of guests for the fall. In the meantime, please check out our archives, which is full of wonderful conversations on branding, the basics of selling, creating a culture of business development, developing a business mindset and building a firm that one can believe in. Remember to subscribe so you don't miss the new episodes when we return in September. Thank you for listing and enjoy the rest of your summer!

PR professional Janet Falk, principle of Falk Communications and Research, discusses how law firms can use PR proactively to instigate key influencers to undertake actions that lead to positive outcomes for their clients. We discuss the multiplicity of "publics" that public relations can reach, the increasingly fragmented nature of these in the digital age, and examples of PR being used to reach particular groups in order to advance clients' interests.