James Hipkin
founder and CEO
Over a 40-year career, James worked in marketing and advertising at a high level. Since 2010, he has built his clients’ businesses with digital marketing.
James is an accomplished, forward-thinking marketing professional. His clients included Sprint, Apple, Wells Fargo online bank, Nestlé, and Toyota. They appreciate his practical, no-nonsense approach. He has the scars and many stories to share.
His stories are always valuable and entertaining. His humor and infectious good-natured approach to marketing are fun and practical. But he never loses track of what’s important. Marketing, done well, creates value for customers and the business.
Connect with James Hipkin:
Stop saying "call to action", you want to sell the transformation.
James Hipkin
Episode 149
Listen now
Brief summary of show:
In this conversation, James Hipkin and Karin Conroy explore the complexities of digital marketing, particularly in the context of law firms. They discuss the importance of having a solid marketing strategy, the distinction between inside out and outside in marketing, and the significance of understanding the best customer. The role of AI in enhancing marketing strategies is also examined, along with the customer journey and the marketing funnel.
The discussion emphasizes the need for effective pathways that guide potential clients through their decision-making process, ultimately leading to a more authentic and supportive marketing approach. In this conversation, James Hipkin and Karin Conroy discuss the evolving landscape of marketing, particularly for law firms, emphasizing the importance of creating a welcoming environment, leveraging AI, and making data-driven decisions. They explore the significance of understanding the audience’s needs and preferences, the role of empathy in marketing, and the necessity of measuring success through effective tracking. The discussion also highlights practical strategies for firms to stand out in a competitive market and the timeless principles of marketing that remain relevant despite technological advancements.
Don’t just listen—take action!
Apply these strategies to see real results
Show Notes
Unlock the Power of AI for Your Law Firm! In this episode of Counsel Cast, “What’s the Secret to AI-Driven Law Firm Marketing Strategy? with James Hipkin,” we dive into the game-changing impact of AI on legal marketing and website optimization.
🔍 Episode Highlights:
- Discover how AI can revolutionize your law firm’s marketing strategy.
- James Hipkin shares actionable insights to build a winning AI-driven marketing plan.
- Learn how to optimize your law firm’s website for better client engagement.
- Uncover tools and tactics to target the right clients at the right time using AI.
🎙️ In This Episode:
We explore how law firms can harness AI to stay ahead in today’s competitive market. James Hipkin offers his expertise on integrating AI into your marketing efforts, turning data into actionable strategies, and using cutting-edge tools to enhance your firm’s online presence. Learn how to make your marketing more efficient, effective, and results-driven.
⚖️ Ideal for:
- Lawyers and law firms ready to embrace innovative marketing solutions.
- Legal professionals looking to leverage AI for better targeting and personalization.
- Marketers specializing in the legal field who want to stay ahead of the curve.
James Hipkin gives listeners actionable tips on:
00:00 Demystifying Digital Marketing
03:02 Understanding Marketing Strategy
06:00 Inside Out vs. Outside In Marketing
08:59 Identifying Your Best Customer
12:03 The Role of AI in Marketing Strategy
15:06 Customer Journey and Marketing Funnel
17:51 Creating Effective Marketing Pathways
22:29 Creating a Welcoming Environment
23:15 Leveraging AI in Marketing Strategies
24:28 The Importance of Measurement and Testing
25:52 Understanding What Works: Data-Driven Decisions
28:45 Audience-Centric Marketing: Inside Out vs. Outside In
31:46 Learning from Successful Marketing Examples
33:16 The Psychology of Decision Making in Marketing
36:42 Key Takeaways for Effective Marketing
39:47 Building a Strong Foundation: Start with Your List
Take Action: Your Next Steps
This episode provides practical takeaways that you can implement immediately to enhance your approach to communication and public speaking. Dive into the full episode for more details. Here’s a quick look at the first step:
-
Please stop trying to boil the ocean. You’re never going to succeed at boiling the ocean, so get yourself a nice bucket out of the ocean and figure out how to boil that. Don’t try to do too many things. Find the one or two things that seems to be working, back to measurement again, and double down on that. Don’t get distracted by the shiny things that fly through.

James Hipkin's Book
This week’s featured book in our Thought Leaders Library comes from our guest, James Hipkin. His pick? The timeless classic “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini.
🔍 Why This Book?
James Hipkin chose this influential work for its groundbreaking exploration of the principles of persuasion and how they shape decision-making. As lawyers and marketers, understanding these principles can empower you to build trust, craft compelling messages, and create impactful marketing strategies that resonate with your audience.
💡 What You’ll Gain:
- Discover the six principles of persuasion and how to apply them to your legal marketing.
- Learn how small changes in communication can lead to significant shifts in client behavior.
- Explore actionable insights to build stronger client relationships and enhance your firm’s marketing impact.
Whether you’re looking to enhance your negotiation skills, refine your client interactions, or create marketing messages that convert, this book is a must-read for legal professionals. Add Influence by Robert Cialdini to your reading list today and elevate your understanding of what makes people say “yes.”
Listen to the Episode Here:
From the publisher:
The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion—a renowned international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold—now revised adding: new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications.
In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini—New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion—explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. Using memorable stories and relatable examples, Cialdini makes this crucially important subject surprisingly easy. With Cialdini as a guide, you don’t have to be a scientist to learn how to use this science.
You’ll learn Cialdini’s Universal Principles of Influence, including new research and new uses so you can become an even more skilled persuader—and just as importantly, you’ll learn how to defend yourself against unethical influence attempts. You may think you know these principles, but without understanding their intricacies, you may be ceding their power to someone else.
Influence by Robert Cialdini
Show Transcript
Here, you’ll find a detailed, word-for-word account of the insightful conversation from this episode. Whether you’re revisiting key takeaways or catching up on what you missed, this transcript is a valuable resource for diving deeper into the expert advice shared by our guest. Enjoy exploring strategies, tips, and actionable insights tailored to help lawyers and law firms grow their practice through effective marketing!
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (00:02.402)
You know how digital marketing is like super, super important, but my God, it is so confusing and so overwhelming. Hey, I’m James and I’m on a mission to demystify digital marketing for the rest of us.
Karin Conroy (00:06.884)
Yes.
Karin Conroy (00:18.654)
I love that intro. Did I just interrupt you have more? Okay, good. Okay, awesome. James Hipkin, thank you so much for being here. I am excited about this topic and I say that a lot. So people may start to get tired of hearing me talk about being excited about these conversations, but.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (00:21.962)
Nope, that’s it.
Karin Conroy (00:37.424)
This is something I know people are searching for. I know this based on the data on my website, based on every article I ever write about AI and marketing strategy, and we are bringing those two together. So the title for today’s show is, What is the secret to AI-driven law firm marketing strategy? Because there’s some nice solid keywords in that title. But I know you guys are searching for this. let’s start about, so there’s a lot. There’s AI, there’s marketing strategy.
You’re a law firm, so let’s bring it all together. And first, James, let’s talk about just building marketing strategies in general. What is typically the first problem you see with your clients in terms of strategy?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (01:25.74)
The first problem I see typically is that there isn’t one. You know, it’s like they’ve gotten to a certain level of success and they’ve gone out and hired a little digital boutique, digital marketing agency, because that’s what they could afford. Nobody comes to work with the intention of doing a bad job. So they’re going to do the best they can with what they’re given.
Karin Conroy (01:29.562)
Yes, exactly.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (01:49.954)
But the business owner isn’t a marketing strategist and this little boutique agency isn’t a marketing strategy firm. So what they do is they take what the client gives them and they make it pretty.
Karin Conroy (02:01.614)
Yes. So that’s a designer. I want to, let’s, get into this sort of definition here, because a lot of people are calling themselves strategists now because it is a kind of hot trending topic and it sounds like you’re fancier and you can probably try to command a higher, you know, fee, but what let’s start first with what it isn’t, which is what you were describing, which is like, I’m just going to make it pretty. That’s a designer. That’s someone who’s on my team.
And that’s not where we start. We don’t start with the design because how can you start with the design when you don’t know what you’re building? So what is not strategy and then what is strategy?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (02:44.43)
Okay, well.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (02:48.108)
Not strategy is what typically happens. I call it inside out marketing. It’s where the business owner is standing in the rooftop of their building, shouting at the world at large about how awesome they are. I don’t know how to break this to you, but nobody cares. They don’t care. Strategic marketing, I will describe as outside in marketing.
Karin Conroy (02:52.369)
Yes.
Karin Conroy (03:02.386)
you
No, they don’t. Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (03:14.358)
And that starts with a deep understanding of who your best customer is and what’s the journey that they are on. Again, hate to break it to you. If they don’t have a need for your services, they’re not gonna see your marketing. It doesn’t matter.
Karin Conroy (03:37.936)
Yeah, and they shouldn’t!
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (03:40.086)
It just doesn’t matter how good it is or how pretty it is or anything else. They don’t even need all the marketing in the world is not going to change that.
Karin Conroy (03:48.71)
Well, and they shouldn’t be seeing your marketing because that is an indication that you’re wasting your money. So if you are a divorce lawyer and all of a sudden people who are looking for a personal injury lawyer are seeing your marketing, something’s wrong. That’s not just like, we’re getting extra traffic this month. No, there’s something wrong there that needs to be fixed. So let’s talk about, cause while you were describing that inside out versus outside in marketing,
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (03:54.272)
Exactly.
Karin Conroy (04:15.762)
and how people are standing on the top of the building talking about themselves. I was picturing Nordstrom and I was picturing if I landed on the homepage of Nordstrom and I’m looking for a great new pair of shoes and the homepage of Nordstrom started by telling me about its founder. How weird does that sound? Right? Like that, that is
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (04:38.072)
Right.
Karin Conroy (04:39.3)
so wrong and the and as I describe that I’m sure everyone can understand I’m looking for shoes and you’re telling me about you know Mr. Nordstrom like I do not care about Mr. Nordstrom right now.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (04:53.11)
Right. that’s an, there’s another way to think about this. And this is one of my more controversial things. I tell people, stop saying call to action.
Karin Conroy (05:05.074)
Okay, this is good. Why?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (05:08.046)
Exactly, because everybody has been told from their…
very beginnings, you’ve got to have a call to action. Okay, but think about it, what is a call to action? A call to action is a marketer shouting at customers and telling them what to do. People don’t want to be shouted at, they don’t want to be told what to do. That’s inside out marketing.
Karin Conroy (05:15.174)
Yes. Yes.
Karin Conroy (05:25.423)
Yes.
Karin Conroy (05:29.464)
Nobody does, yeah. Okay.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (05:32.288)
Outside mark outside in marketing is I understand who my customer is I understand their journey I understand where they are in their journey, and I’m creating messaging I’m creating pathways for them to follow That will support the journey that they are on
Karin Conroy (05:53.008)
Okay, so what is your version of a call to action then? If we’re not calling it, yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (05:55.81)
So I’m just, it’s a mindset shift. Functionally, it’s exactly the same thing. It’s still a button. You still need to click on it. But the mindset shift is really important because when you call it a call to action, you’re inside out, you’re shouting at them, you’re telling them what to do. When you call it a pathway, you’re recognizing that my audience is distinct and has distinct needs.
Karin Conroy (06:00.636)
Okay.
Karin Conroy (06:04.004)
Okay. Yes. Yeah.
Karin Conroy (06:15.559)
Right.
Karin Conroy (06:25.178)
Yes.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (06:25.302)
and I’m going to support that. And I’ll tell you, when you create these pathways and somebody elects to follow the pathway, two very powerful things have happened. They’ve told you exactly who they are and they’ve given you permission to give them more information. Okay, how powerful is that?
Karin Conroy (06:45.016)
Yes. Okay, so give me an, yeah, that’s amazing. So give me an example of, so a traditional call to action is something like learn more, click here, you know, whatever, something like that, contact us. What would be a variation on that button that recognizes that they’re on the path and there’s something of value on the other side of that button?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (07:09.208)
Well, it may still say, more, but it’s in the context of a card that I call them people like you pathways. And there’s a headline that calls out, you considering a divorce? Have you been in an accident? Right? So you’re creating pathways that people can see, yes, that’s what I’m interested in. And there’s a picture.
Karin Conroy (07:17.541)
Okay.
Karin Conroy (07:26.172)
Got it.
Karin Conroy (07:33.798)
Yes.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (07:35.266)
that supports this, there might be a sentence or two that alludes to the benefits people are gonna get if they follow this pathway, they click the learn more button and you’ve just learned this is a person who’s looking for a divorce lawyer and has, so you know how to pitch your services to them because they’ve told you who they are. Exactly.
Karin Conroy (07:41.671)
Got it.
Karin Conroy (07:56.124)
they’ve identified themselves. They’re like, they’ve kind of raised their hand and said, this is the thing that I need from you. And this is my problem that I need you to solve. Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (08:04.246)
Right. Exactly. As opposed to what normally happens where everything that the business does is regurgitated on the homepage and it’s left to the poor visitor to figure out what’s important to me and what’s not. Which they won’t.
Karin Conroy (08:14.512)
Yes. Yeah.
Karin Conroy (08:21.734)
which they won’t. And they just click away and they find a better done site that does that, that speaks to them. we all know this as consumers. We all know that if, once again, to go back, I’m just gonna keep with the Nordstrom example, cause it’s so clear. If I go to that website, and first of all, it’s talking to me about the Nordstrom founder, I’m gone. And second of all, if I’m looking for the shoes and I start clicking through and it’s like giving me jackets and scarves and whatever, I’m like,
This is a waste of my time. I can’t tell you what I’m looking for so that you can provide that for me. So I’m going to go find a website that is just all about shoes that I’m looking for. Yeah. Okay.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (08:59.79)
Right. And this is another key word that I used earlier that I think is worth exploring here is I said, you need to understand who your best customer is. And this concept of best customer is another powerful strategic pillar that a business owner needs to think about, because for almost any business, 80 % of their revenue is being generated by 20 % of their customers.
Karin Conroy (09:12.454)
Yes.
Karin Conroy (09:29.114)
Right, and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (09:31.126)
And that’s how it’s supposed to be and that’s how it is. But do they really know how that 20 % is different from everyone else? What that 20 % is looking for? Do they understand the avatar for that group? Because they’re going to be different than the average person. They’re going to be heavy users. They’re going to have a big need. And they’re going to have very distinct requirements.
Karin Conroy (09:46.226)
Mm-hmm.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (10:01.076)
And if you take the time to understand who they are, then you can build these pathways in a way that will really resonate with them. They won’t feel like they’re being sold. They’ll feel like they’re being supported. And what you want is the ultimate call to action, the ultimate action you want them to take, whether it’s a sale or contact, know, contacting somebody or whatever it might be.
Karin Conroy (10:17.912)
Yes.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (10:30.188)
You want that to feel like the next logical step in their journey, not something they’ve been tricked into doing.
Karin Conroy (10:37.464)
Yes, that is such an important point because I think that is the foundation of so much bad marketing is that people are trying to find these tricks. So much of SEO is done this way and so much bad SEO is leading to bad content that really doesn’t support those ideal clients that you’re talking about. And then they come to you and they feel tricked.
And I think that’s such a seriously major important point where the right people, when they land on your phone or in your inbox, they are excited about it. And I just had a call yesterday where we walked through, you know, how I could support this person and how, where, and he, we got to the end of the call and he’s like, I’m so excited. That’s how it should be. You know, it shouldn’t be, I’m sending you a proposal and you’re feeling
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (11:29.976)
Yes.
Karin Conroy (11:34.414)
leery about it and you’re gonna dig through the terms and conditions because you’re worried about me tricking you in some way. Yeah, okay. All right, so let’s get into the AI part of this because that’s a big part that we wanna spend some time talking about and I know you’ve got lots of thoughts on this. how can we, let’s just do a transition with AI and marketing strategy. How can we do that in a way
that feels authentic to our brand and our messaging and exactly what you were just talking about where it doesn’t feel slimy and tricky.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (12:12.076)
Right, the reality is when I was back in the day when I was working with big brands and big budgets, we would commission researchers who would do this kind of work and they would do focus groups and quantitative research and analysis and et cetera. And they would craft a description of the customer, the avatar. And it would typically have four quadrants. There would be the demographics.
that would, what they’re like physically, and that’s very helpful when you’re selecting media. There’s the characteristics. What are they like as people? Which really helps you with copywriting and design because you know who you’re talking to. And then there’s what’s their pain? What is the thing that they are struggling with? And then what’s the gain?
What’s the transformation that they can experience from working with you?
Karin Conroy (13:13.296)
And I will say for a lot of products and services, the pain and the gain, those can be kind of tricky to identify and define, but for law firms, come on, this should be super, super easy and straightforward. You know that most people that are seeking a lawyer, they’ve got some major pain. And even if you’re a business firm and you work with businesses or something like…
you know, that doesn’t have quite as much of an urgency as like, let’s say, criminal defense. There’s still a pain there. There’s still something that the point of hiring a lawyer is to take whatever that issue is off their shoulders. So that should be pretty easy to define. And then the gain is, you know, is that exact thing, taking that, you know, alleviating that pain.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (14:02.006)
Right, but there’s also layers to it. There’s the practical, but I mean, nobody buys a Mercedes Benz because it’s a practical choice.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (14:15.404)
Right? There’s all…
Karin Conroy (14:16.252)
Yes! I’ve had a Mercedes and I can say yes, absolutely. Not practical.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (14:22.99)
There are emotional pieces in this. I often tell people, you’re selling the journey. You don’t want to sell the journey. You want to sell the transformation. You want to sell the destination. And that’s going to have practical aspects to it, and that’s going to have emotional aspects to it. But if you’re painting the picture of what’s where…
Karin Conroy (14:28.176)
Yeah.
Karin Conroy (14:41.029)
Yes, yes.
Karin Conroy (14:46.576)
Yeah, yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (14:52.074)
where are you going to end up at the end of this process? Everybody knows that there’s going to be steps, but they want to know that you’re, they’re doing the steps with somebody that they can trust and somebody that they can like. you know, these, so that it’s important that the transformation be clear and then recognizing where people are in their journey. everybody, there are several phases of the journey. There’s
Karin Conroy (15:06.226)
Mm-hmm.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (15:21.162)
not aware and aware. That’s the top of the funnel. And if they’re not aware, all the marketing, and they don’t have a need, your marketing’s not gonna work. But when something happens in their life, you want to be there. And you want to be there with a message that’s related to those kinds of top of the funnel, aware versus not aware events. Draw them in.
Karin Conroy (15:23.11)
Yeah, right.
Karin Conroy (15:47.217)
Yes.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (15:49.622)
And then in the mid funnel, you’ve got two sections, you’ve got consideration, that’s where they’re doing their research, their investigation, what are my choices, what are my options, and that’s where SEO gets involved, is a lot of times, you if you look at, people talk about SEO and they go on and on and on about keyword research and how important keyword research is and et cetera, and it is important. But as with most things, it needs to be balanced.
Karin Conroy (16:01.681)
Yep.
Karin Conroy (16:15.921)
Yes.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (16:17.166)
keyword research and search intent. You’ve got to keep those things in balance and that search intent piece is how really you can help understand when something has an informational search intent, that’s consideration phase. If something has a commercial search intent, that’s prospecting phase.
Karin Conroy (16:40.614)
What’s the difference? Give me an example of the difference between a commercial intent versus an informational intent.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (16:46.346)
informational intent would be, you know, six ways that you can think about approaching a divorce.
Karin Conroy (16:55.025)
Okay.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (16:57.112)
commercial intent is going to be like product reviews. You know, it’s going to be, do I want to DIY this with legal zoom or do I want to, with the pros and cons of DIYing it versus a, and you’ll have to help me here with the terminology. My son just went through this. There are folks who aren’t actually legals, but they’re paralegals that specialize in divorce and help people with non-contested divorces.
Karin Conroy (17:02.705)
Okay, okay.
Karin Conroy (17:09.647)
Yes.
Karin Conroy (17:22.937)
Yes. Yep.
Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of that out there. Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (17:29.335)
Okay, you wanna have create content that talks about DIYing it, the paralegal non-contested versus the, and that becomes the sort of a deeper, because at this point, they’ve decided what they’re doing and now they’re trying to choose something specific.
Karin Conroy (17:48.976)
Right, now they’re trying to kind of negotiate the cost. Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (17:51.34)
Right, and then there’s the decision making phase, is, know, then that’s where the cost value proposition gets involved. But if you’ve done your job through the funnel, that becomes a lot easier because you’ve made, put a lot of emphasis on the value that you’re bringing and therefore the cost becomes less important.
Karin Conroy (18:16.08)
Right, exactly. Because then it’s wait, I see these options out there. I see legal Zoom, but I’m worried about that. I feel like there’s some risk involved. And so how can I now afford the value option? And how can I make that work? Because I really want the value, the option that has all the value, I should say. Because when I say the value option, it sounds like that’s the cheap option, which is not what I mean. OK, so how do we bring
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (18:41.27)
Right. So that’s the journey and then combined with the avatar. typically when I was doing big brands that study like that might cost 50 grand. And that’s a lot of Take months.
Karin Conroy (18:47.163)
Right.
Karin Conroy (18:52.954)
Right. And take how long? Months, right? Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (18:57.718)
So what we’ve done is using my knowledge and experience and I pulled in a woman who does this, does the $50,000 studies for, she just finished one for Wells Fargo. She does this kind of work. We have built an interview guide that a business owner can use to go out and just.
Karin Conroy (19:10.193)
Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (19:20.652)
Get on the phone or get on Zoom and interview six to ten of your existing best clients. Use the interview guide to structure the conversation and record the conversation. Then we take those recordings and transcribe them and analyze them and there’s lots of additional insights that are built into this.
Karin Conroy (19:28.198)
Nice.
Karin Conroy (19:45.904)
Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (19:46.382)
and we generate an avatar and a journey map that the audience, so rather than spending $50,000 for 2,500 bucks, you’ve got, no, is it as good as what Susan and I could do on our own if you paid for the research? No, probably not. But you’re not looking for, 80%, 90 % is still way better than where you are today.
Karin Conroy (19:51.187)
how cool!
Karin Conroy (20:05.636)
Yeah, right.
Karin Conroy (20:14.546)
Well, and what you’re talking about that you and Susan would have done was for like a Fortune 500 company where there’s a lot of different layers there and complications because it’s so huge that you just don’t necessarily find in a small business. So a lot of those elements are really time consuming, but they’re really not necessary for a typical law firm. Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (20:20.224)
Exactly.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (20:38.654)
Exactly. this, this, but when you’ve got that strategic foundation piece, now your boutique marketing agency has got something to work with.
Karin Conroy (20:49.744)
Yeah, yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (20:50.134)
Now they know who they’re talking to, they know what the kinds of questions they need to address, how to draw people in, how to support their journey, how to bring them to the close. That helps you with website design and development, it helps you with marketing, it helps you in so many different ways.
Karin Conroy (21:05.978)
your entire marketing plan is just, is there now. Now you have the foundation to build all of the other pieces. And so we talk a lot about strategy versus tactics and you cannot start those tactics, including your website as a tactic. How do you start a website without that strategy? And I can say, I know exactly how you do it because for years and years, I mean, I started doing websites in the beginning of the internet.
And there was no strategy. was like, basically, there was multiple times where I would have a law firm physically mail me their physical brochure, and I would scan that and turn that into a website. And that’s kind of what you’re talking about when you describe that guy standing on the top of the building screaming about who they are, is this old school brochure. And even websites, when we were going through this transition from
the old school HTML websites to what it is now, it wasn’t just a technical transition. There was also lot of strategy and recognizing what various users and consumers want out of a website. And those old websites were called brochure sites and they were just very thin and superficial. And there was a time that worked. That time has passed. That doesn’t work anymore. Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (22:29.004)
Yes, that time is back. You need to be able to stand out and differentiate yourself compared to everybody else who’s offering basically the same services. And one of the ways you can do that is by creating an environment that people find welcoming and that they’re finding the information they’re looking for right away. this… Right.
Karin Conroy (22:40.486)
Yes.
Karin Conroy (22:52.114)
and they feel understood and heard and all of that, all of that good psychology.
Okay, so what else in terms of AI should firms be considering when it comes to their marketing strategy, their plan? What other elements, tools, of thoughts should they be putting in in order to get the most out of it?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (23:15.512)
Big problem that people run across is overthinking things.
Karin Conroy (23:20.88)
Yeah, especially lawyers.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (23:23.854)
I’m not gonna say one way or another, but…
Karin Conroy (23:28.08)
but there may be some truth there.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (23:30.52)
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (23:33.998)
Use measurement.
What we’ll often do with a client is we’ll use AI to generate lots of content really quickly. We are not concerned about SEO. We are concerned about generating lots of content quickly. And then we’re going to measure what’s getting traction.
And once we, so let’s say we build a blog post around a particular theme and we generate 12 Pinterest pins for that blog post and we get them out there and two of them start to get traction. Then we’ll go back into the blog post and optimize it.
But what we won’t do is spend the hours required to optimize it before we know that it’s actually working.
Karin Conroy (24:35.762)
I think that’s so true. That’s such a solid piece of information and strategy. And to be honest, it’s not that different from the stuff that I was learning in my MBA about marketing strategy. We’re just talking about having an understanding of what’s working based on, you know, recent technology. But back in the day, that was called AB testing and you would put out a bunch of things and it felt like it was just sort of haphazard, but it’s not. You’re, just testing the market.
And this is, think something a lot of people don’t want to hear about marketing, but there’s a lot of things that you’re going to try that are not going to work. And that’s okay because that’s data. Like we still need to do those things in order to understand that that’s not the right path.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (25:22.646)
Right, one of my sort of principles that I follow that I recommend that people think about, the key to success is water the flowers and prune the weeds. Okay, how do you understand what’s a flower and what’s a weed? Okay, add UTM tracking tags to your URLs so that you know this one’s generating traffic, because if you just have
Karin Conroy (25:33.762)
Yes, I love that.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (25:52.718)
like social media as the feed on your Google Analytics, that’s not very helpful. But if you know it’s coming from very specific posts on Instagram, or I’ll give you an example, a client of ours.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (26:12.59)
And he was spending like $5,000 a month with this guy who sat in a dark room and wore a hoodie and he was a YouTube specialist. Okay?
Karin Conroy (26:23.506)
No, this is already up to a bad start.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (26:26.894)
And you know, first and foremost, having wearing a hoodie and being in a backlit room does not make you a digital marketing expert. All evidence to the contrary, but we put tracking tags on all these URLs. And we’re like, 80 % of your traffic is coming from here and 20 % of your traffic is coming from YouTube.
You’re spending 80 % of your budget on YouTube and 20 % of your budget on the stuff that’s actually working. Maybe you should switch that.
Karin Conroy (26:57.66)
on YouTube.
Karin Conroy (27:01.264)
Yeah. Yeah. But there’s no way that you would have known that in terms of how to allocate your budget without that data.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (27:10.37)
without that data, without the tracking. And it’s such a simple idea and yet most people don’t do it.
Karin Conroy (27:12.708)
Yeah, exactly.
Karin Conroy (27:18.106)
Right, they just think they’re gonna have a feeling about it. Like we are talking a lot initially in the strategy about feelings and psychology and all of that stuff. And yes, those feelings matter when it comes to marketing, but when it comes to making the decisions and knowing what’s working, we gotta go to the numbers. Like we’re not talking about feelings anymore. Now we’re gonna go and see, and let’s just be very kind of harsh and brutal about it. Like let’s not look at these marketing campaigns like they’re your babies.
Let’s just look at them like they’re data points. And if this one is not working, even if you had some like weird, kind of emotional attachment to it, you got to let it go. Like just, you know, don’t keep spending money on something that’s not working.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (27:57.55)
And this is another example of that outside in versus inside out thing that I was talking about. Inside out is, you know, I’m using this because I think it’s very cool. Outside in is actually letting your audience tell you by their behavior what’s working for them.
Karin Conroy (28:01.904)
Yes. Yeah.
Karin Conroy (28:15.908)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Another example that I hear all the time that is kind of related to that inside out versus outside in is, well, there’s this other law firm down the street and I swear they’re doing it and it’s working. And I always say, how do you know it’s working? How do you know? Have you seen their P &L? Do you know it? Like, it looks like they’re spending a lot of energy on this thing, but do you know for sure that that’s actually leading to successful cases and conversions?
And you know what, maybe it is, maybe you talk to them and let’s say that this is your buddy and he’s actually given some insight to you, but that doesn’t mean it’s for you. So like, let’s stop comparing yourself to that law firm down the street. Like, please, for my own sanity.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (29:01.152)
And again, if the avatar we talked about before, the demographics, if your audience is over 40 and predominantly male, don’t be on TikTok.
Karin Conroy (29:10.194)
Yeah.
Karin Conroy (29:15.895)
Yes!
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (29:16.768)
I don’t care what your nephew says, you know, and, and, and, but if you’re, if the law firm down the street is on Tik TOK, but they’re, you know, targeting a much younger audience. And again, with a very different problem, then it might be very smart for them to be doing that.
Karin Conroy (29:20.562)
Yeah.
Karin Conroy (29:38.128)
Yeah, I’ll give you an example. Exactly.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (29:38.702)
But it’s about who is their audience and where is their audience and how is their audience going to see your marketing in the 6,000 10,000 marketing messages they get exposed to a day. How’s yours going to stand out?
Karin Conroy (29:56.294)
Right. And do they care? Let’s just go back to where we started. Do they care in that moment about your message? I’ll give you an example of a firm that I know is doing well on TikTok. And let me start by saying, this is the exception, because I 100 % agree that the majority of law firms probably don’t have much of an audience on TikTok. But this firm was doing, does immigration law. She speaks Spanish.
and she looks like a kind of very blonde American white woman. And so she’s speaking Spanish to a Latin audience, which right away, it’s noticeable. She gets a noticeable difference from other people who are speaking. And she’s in her office, very professional, just answering very simple immigration questions in Spanish to an audience. And that was her entire marketing strategy. it
absolutely worked. She went from thinking she was going to start as a solo, within months she had like five people on her team. It was just massive, massive success because she knew who her audience was, she knew they were there and she knew how to speak to them in a way that was valuable. She wasn’t dancing, she wasn’t just doing like sitting on courthouse steps doing some weird thing. It was like offering the answers.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (31:08.848)
Exactly.
Karin Conroy (31:18.362)
where they are and where they want to hear them.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (31:21.228)
Right, and that’s fundamental. It’s fundamental, mean, earlier in my career I had the opportunity to work with the folks at Apple and my team worked with the Apple folks to help launch the original iPod. And the technology that Apple was launching with was actually inferior to the technology that already existed in the marketplace.
Karin Conroy (31:36.912)
how cool!
Karin Conroy (31:46.63)
which is usually the case, but I still am an Apple evangelist.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (31:50.252)
Well, but the thing is that they recognized that the audience wasn’t looking for a technology solution. The audience was looking for a thousand songs in their pocket.
Karin Conroy (31:56.977)
right.
Karin Conroy (32:01.05)
Yes, I love this.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (32:02.958)
And the technology was relatively speaking immaterial. Meanwhile, all of their competitors were talking about the fidelity and the quality and the reliability and all these features that nobody cared about.
Karin Conroy (32:19.598)
Yes. Once again, man standing on top of the building screaming about himself. Nobody cares about that. They care about, you know, whatever that problem or issue or pain point is that they have. And Apple just nails it. They nail it every time. Like they’ve got, imagine what their marketing, that’s true, that’s Majority. Yeah. Imagine their marketing budgets, you know, like just taking some of their
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (32:35.222)
Right. Well, not every time, but they’re better at it than most.
Karin Conroy (32:46.332)
tips and lessons and all of that stuff, like it can take you quite a ways in just getting your thoughts in the right place. Okay, so it is time for the book review. We have a library of books on the website where all of our guests have suggested something that you should consider. so there’s a treasure trove there that everyone should go in if they’re looking for great business books for the most part to support their marketing plans. So James, what’s the book that you want to suggest today?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (33:16.11)
Well, I think that I’m just going to step away because wait a second. My wife cleaned up my office.
Karin Conroy (33:23.208)
no, okay, you’re gonna do it. You’re gonna hold up the book and that’s okay. no, that’s okay.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (33:26.368)
I was gonna hold up the book, but…
Okay, it’s been around for a long time. It’s just recently had a revision and I’m actually reading the revision because I read the original years and years and years ago. It’s influenced by Chaldini. And it really what he’s doing is he digs into the psychology behind decision making processes. And when you understand the psycho, yeah.
Karin Conroy (33:33.798)
Yeah.
Karin Conroy (33:42.02)
Yes, this is a classic.
Karin Conroy (33:52.74)
Yes. And persuasion. And I love this word persuasion because it’s what most lawyers really trust and persuasion are at the core of being a great lawyer.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (34:03.86)
Exactly. understanding the underpinning psychology is really important because it helps you, it gives you a toolbox that you can use at the different points in the journey. Again, you’re not trying to trick people, you’re trying to support them, but you still need to recognize that it’s a competitive environment and you’re competing for their attention. having those tools to understand
Karin Conroy (34:18.02)
Yes.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (34:32.332)
what you should do and when you should do it is a really powerful thing.
Karin Conroy (34:36.752)
Absolutely. It’s a great book. We obviously will put that book on the show page, excuse me, as well as within the library. It’s a classic. feel like this is a good time of year to be picking that up and just page through it and remind yourself of some of these core theories. Because at the end of the day, a lot of the things we’re talking about, we’re obviously talking about AI and technology and all of that stuff, but it’s built on the foundation of the core concepts of marketing that have not changed.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (35:06.476)
They have not changed.
Karin Conroy (35:06.66)
about, yeah, find your clients, be where they are. My marketing professor in grad school would say all the time, where are they and be there, know, find where they are and be it. And that’s where I started my agency. I found this blog Lawyerist that a lot of the listeners should know and has been around for since the beginning of the internet as well. And I went there because it was a lot of lawyers building new law firms.
and I was the only one there talking about marketing at the time. They eventually had lots and lots of people come in and post, but it was a classic blog at the time where it was all these guest posts and whatever, and I was writing about legal marketing, and it just went from there. And was like, all of a sudden, I had this good-sized following because I was in the right place, and that’s the people were there looking for the things I was talking about. And it wasn’t like I went through
the blog posts and then halfway through I started selling and pitching and doing all that. You don’t want to do that. You want to just provide value. So Core Marketing Concepts, the Influence by Robert Chialdini will link to that. It’s a great book. So James, what’s one thing that you want people to take away from this episode? And let’s just say like as they are finishing this episode and they’re, you
thinking about everything we were talking about. What’s the first thing they should be thinking of doing in terms of everything we’ve talked about?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (36:42.402)
There’s an old direct marketing axiom that people, should write this down, print it out on a big piece of paper, put it on your wall, get the right message to the right person at the right time. When it gets right down to it, that’s marketing.
People tend to over complicate things. The other thing I’ll often say to folks is, please, please, please stop trying to boil the ocean.
Karin Conroy (37:17.874)
What do you mean by that?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (37:20.908)
Well, you’re never going to succeed at boiling the ocean, so get yourself a nice bucket out of the ocean and figure out how to boil that. Don’t try to do too many things. Find the one or two things that seems to be working, back to measurement again, and double down on that. Right? Don’t get distracted by the shiny things that fly through.
Karin Conroy (37:24.421)
All right.
Karin Conroy (37:30.45)
yes.
Karin Conroy (37:37.456)
Yep. Yep.
Yes. And more important.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (37:47.586)
Get the right message to the right person at the right time. If you do that, you’ll be successful.
Karin Conroy (37:52.485)
And when-
Right, and just to support that, like what you’re describing is, you know, figure out which parts are working, but you you described writing 10 or 12 blog posts, and then there’s probably one or two that you’re gonna focus on. But that also means to throw away those, you know, eight to 10 that aren’t working. And that’s the piece that I think people have a really, really hard time with. They’re like, well, you know, no, you need to stop. You have a limited amount of time and energy and effort and…
those are distracting you and muddying the water. And that is you trying to boil the ocean. That is you trying to do too many things. So yes, focus on those other things. But I think what I don’t hear enough is people talking about like that other stuff that’s a distraction, get rid of it. You really need to like put it in the trash, move away from it and stop going back to it. For a lot of firms, what I see this is social media. For a lot of firms, it’s
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (38:29.677)
Yes.
Karin Conroy (38:53.902)
mostly a waste of time. There’s some value there, but not what you think it is. It’s not going to be, you know, translating to immediate leads and things like that right away. But things like that, and maybe it’s not social media, maybe you’ve had great success on social media, you’ve got that figured out. But that’s just one example where if you are swimming upstream in social media and you find yourself wasting a lot of time, and then over there on the other, in your other hand, you’ve got things that are working,
get rid of the waste of social media that you’re wasting your time and money on, kind of like you were describing with that YouTube client that you have, and focus on that other stuff. And it’s kind of a hard decision sometimes, but that’s business.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (39:38.518)
I had a customer reach out to me today. They talked to me about a year ago initially and then they’ve things, they just popped back up again. And.
Karin Conroy (39:47.632)
Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (39:51.97)
We design and build websites. I spent like eight paragraphs explaining why he shouldn’t do a website right now. You know, because the first things first folks, you know, in the world of digital marketing, you only own two assets, your website and your list. You want to start with the list.
Karin Conroy (39:59.374)
Nice. Nice.
Karin Conroy (40:11.825)
Yes.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (40:16.034)
Because the best way for you to know that you’re investing properly is to actually sell something to someone. And you don’t need a website to do that. Start with your…
Karin Conroy (40:27.836)
So what was your suggestion to this person? Start with like an email campaign?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (40:31.286)
Start with, start building his email list. Use your contacts, your partner’s contacts, bring them all together. Use a tool like Google Mail Merge, because you don’t want to get into spam problems. Use Google Mail Merge to send out big, know, bulk emails to your contacts, invite them to sign up for your newsletter.
Karin Conroy (40:34.396)
Got it.
Karin Conroy (40:56.775)
Nice.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (40:57.376)
and then use a service like we recommend Mailchimp, mostly because all my staff are trained in it. They’re all basically the same at that level. But Mailchimp has the landing page option that you get as part of the package. So get yourself a URL, redirect that URL to the Mailchimp landing page, and it’s free. Get started. Start building your list. Build…
Karin Conroy (41:21.948)
Yeah. Yeah. And create data from that list. Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (41:25.728)
and create data, build like two or three other landing pages, again, over on MailChimp for each of the products or services that you’re interested in selling and invite people to sign up for them. You can do all of that for very low cost, almost zero cost, and then you’ll know when you’re building the website that what you’re doing is, you’ve got a plan, you have a strategy, you know who you’re trying to talk to.
Karin Conroy (41:32.143)
huh.
Karin Conroy (41:52.294)
and it’s what people want. Yeah, exactly. That’s really clever. And I think that’s some good strategy and just thought in terms of like not putting the horse before the cart. So awesome. All right, well, James, do you have one big takeaway that you’d like people to get from this episode?
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (41:54.338)
You know what people want.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (42:15.266)
I think the key thing, and you’ve talked about it very well and I’ve been talking about it, is get out of your own head and put yourself in the shoes of your best customers. There was a post on LinkedIn just yesterday or the day before somebody put up a little survey around the key things that differentiate a good marketer.
Karin Conroy (42:23.324)
Yeah.
Karin Conroy (42:31.962)
Yes. Yeah.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (42:44.104)
And the thing is that the key thing in my mind wasn’t listed in that list of things. It all the obvious stuff. So in the comment, I just wrote one word, empathy.
Karin Conroy (42:49.616)
What was? Yeah.
Karin Conroy (42:55.364)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (42:57.662)
And that’s, think the key takeaway that I would suggest people take from this is get out of your own head, put yourself in the shoes of your best customer and figure out what they’re looking for.
Karin Conroy (43:11.13)
Yeah. And for most law firms, like I said earlier, this should be pretty an easy thing to do. And if you don’t have empathy for what your clients are going for, you are in the wrong career. So then maybe there’s like some reconsideration you need to do there. But like, if you can’t lead with empathy, you got a problem. So like, let’s start there. Start with the empathy. And then that relates and that comes across in that initial message.
And it’s going to be different because that’s going to really resonate with people who are landing on your site as opposed to, know, we just want a 10 million dollar case and whatever. it’s like, why should I care about that? You know, like that just doesn’t, you know, that’s, that’s kind of gross feeling to lead with that.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (43:57.534)
it’s also impractical from the audience’s point of view. First of all, I don’t need to win a 10 million dollar case. I just need to get this person to stop doing this thing to me. And that’s the destination I’m looking for. How can you help me get there?
Karin Conroy (44:08.848)
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Karin Conroy (44:17.562)
Right. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. James Hipkin is the CEO and founder of Red8 Interactive, who also has this amazing product called Innately that he described in terms of this AI tool that you can use to kind of create these customer journeys and all of that cool stuff that in history would have taken months and months and cost $50,000. So take a look. We’ll link to that, obviously on the show page. That’s going to be the easiest place to find all that stuff.
But we will also link to the website and the product website as well. James, thank you so much for being here.
James Hipkin – Inn8ly.com (44:54.927)
It’s been my absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
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