EXTERNAL MARKETING
written marketing materials - a key to your chapter’s success

If you find there is too much time spent on chapter business at your educational meetings, consider moving your business meeting to another time. Potential members who attend for education are not interested in the administrative items you must discuss.

Newsletters, Publications, and Brochures.
Be sure to distribute chapter, state, and national publications to nonmember offices and to potential members. Create a newcomer or “get acquainted” packet to present to all potential member contacts. Use your imagination in putting together a packet. By providing the community college legal instructor with a packet, you will be introducing NALS to a very important group

Whom Do We Market To?
Are you reaching out to all possible groups in order to make contact with as many potential members as you can? Is there a group in the following list of legal professionals that you have not made contact with?

• Court Personnel
• Community Colleges
• Vocational Schools
• Bar Associations
• Corporate Law Departments
• Court Reporters
• Process Servers
• Office Administrators
• Bank Legal Departments
• Other Law-Related Associations

Tools For Effective Marketing.
Public awareness should be at the top of the list in your marketing plan. By making the association known as the source for legal education for legal professionals, your chapter will grow and prosper. Consider using one or more of the following tools in implementing your chapter’s marketing plan.

News Releases.
One of the easiest ways to deliver information to the public about a special event, seminars, monthly educational meetings, informational events, etc. is by way of news releases. This method of making the public aware of NALS is one of the most popular, and if your message is faxed or e-mailed to newspapers or magazines, there is basically no cost. However, you need to be aware that not all your news releases will be printed so you must use other means of delivering information in addition to news releases.

Prepare and distribute news releases for every event or activity the chapter is involved in, for example:

• Election of Officers
• Speakers
• Conferences
• Awards
• Special Events
• Appointments
• Meetings
• Hot Topics
• Certifications
• Seasonal

Program Releases should be sent to every public medium available:

• Local daily or weekly newspapers
• Major regional newspapers
• Local and state bar associations
• Law-related publications
• Local/national radio and television
• Cable television
• Colleges/universities

News releases need to be written in an acceptable journalistic format. On the following pages of this section are samples of news releases that can be used or revised to meet your needs and your specific event. Basic rules to follow are:

• one or two pages, one side only
• double-spaced
• use release date
• use catchy headline
• include contact information including website addresses
• include organization description

Work on developing a good relationship with an editor so you can follow-up with a phone call. Establish with him or her the best time to call. Usually, a morning deadline dictates a morning call and an afternoon deadline dictates a late afternoon call.

Send news release one or two weeks prior to the event for a newspaper and one to two months for a magazine. If sent too soon, it could get buried on the editor’s desk. If you have developed a relationship with the editor, you can find out the best leadtime for that particular publication.

Do not expect all your releases to be published; only those the editor deems important will appear. And don’t overwhelm the editor with releases on trivial items – they will probably be ignored.

Editorial Marketing.
This is a tool that is easily accomplished by members and is a great way to promote NALS. Editorial marketing is a process where you develop and most likely write articles and then promote the article to magazines and other legal publications.

Since many small state and regional publications do not have the staff or funds to hire writers, they survive on articles submitted by other people; people just like you or someone else in your chapter. This form of marketing is basically cost free and is more credible than advertising in a publication. Almost anybody can buy advertising in a magazine, but only a few get mentioned in a magazine article.
If you would like to give editorial marketing a try, the following guidelines should be helpful in getting you started.

• Choose publications that target the legal profession.
• Contact one editor at a time. Editors prefer articles that are exclusive, not ones that have been mailed to every publication in the legal field.
• Select a subject that would be of concern to a law firm, for example, an article on “How Technology Affects the Firm and the Role of the Legal Professional.”
• Be sure to mention NALS, @Law, seminars, or some other programs offered by membership in NALS.
• Contact publications and request an editorial calendar that is what editors use to convince businesses to advertise in specific areas.
• If a publication is planning to target technology in a future issue, your article on technology would probably fit.

If you are turned down by an editor, go to another; you may only get one or two articles published in a year, but that is better than spending a lot on money on advertisements that are soon forgotten.