CMO2Go,Inc.

How is it this time of year again? Did 2024 go by as quickly for you as it did for us? It’s been another year of learning and growing over here. We worked with law firms in the New York area, as usual, and also firms in Oregon, Louisiana, Ohio and Florida. We are grateful for your trust in us. Part of the CMO2Go mission is to give back, as many of you know. We have worked with some of the same organizations as in years past, and also added a new one. We have made contributions to each of them in your honor, both now and throughout the year. ✅ Feeding Westchester - Erika loves that this organization is right in her backyard. They do so much to reduce food insecurity and hunger.  ✅St. Jude Children's Research Hospital - There is no end to the good St. Jude does for kids and their families; what a wonderful organization. ✅Music Will - Too many arts programs have been cut or reduced, making their work even more valuable. Music Will brings some of that back to the classroom.  ✅American Friends of NATAL - NATAL is the go-to organization for trauma treatment in Israel. They provide assistance to individuals and training to professionals, all needed even more since October 7th. ✅Veteran Advocacy Project (VAP) Advocacy Project - VAP’s  mission is to provide free legal services to low-income veterans and their families, with a focus on those living with post-traumatic stress, brain injury and substance dependency. They also do a ton of work to restore honor (and life saving benefits) to veterans who were unjustly discharged. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season and year to come!

Your firm has invested a lot of time and money in your laterals because they have expertise to offer that enhances your firm’s capabilities. So how are you getting the message out to your firm’s audience - and most importantly, to your clients? Messaging isn’t just about introducing laterals to your clients. As Erika Steinberg, Founder of CMO2Go notes, “...it’s also about why this is going to benefit your clients. Because any opportunity to get in front of clients to chat or catch up with them, share information, and ask what's going on with them is gold.” When laterals are onboarded, it’s critical to create messaging about them for specific audiences including: The firm’s internal and external audiences, and most importantly - Direct messaging for the firm’s clients that everyone at the firm can use. Once that messaging is set, it’s important to put it in writing - and ensure that everyone in the firm is using it strategically. As Elizabeth Kennedy, Founder of New Edge BD and law firm business development expert says, “You're not going to be able to do [this kind of messaging] for every single client, but you can certainly do it for your most strategic clients. Once you have it set for a strategic client, it's easy for others to pick up that thread of discussion and share it with other clients, also with that same issue.” You’ve taken a huge step by investing in your laterals. So don’t waste the opportunity - make sure to share the why strategically with everyone who needs to know about it! 👇 Watch this clip featuring Erika Steinberg, Founder of CMO2Go and Elizabeth Kennedy, Founder of New Edge BD as they discuss law firms’ challenges with lateral integration and tell us - how are you ensuring that everyone gets the right message about your new lateral hires? https://lnkd.in/eJS_Cmec

It’s almost 2025, and your law firm wants to keep the momentum going on all your marketing initiatives through the new year. But do you have the marketing staff you need to maintain and build on that momentum? CMO2Go provides on-demand legal marketing designed exclusively for law firms by veteran legal marketers. And, we want to give our law firm clients the same flexibility that they offer their own clients. So for a limited time, we’re offering a Hello 2025 special to close out the old year, and welcome in the new one. Your law firm can purchase a flexible package of hours before the end of the year that you can use in 2025 - with no impact on your budget for the new year! Here’s how you can use those hours for our on-demand legal marketing services: ⏰ To bridge a gap - If a key member of your marketing team is going on leave or leaving your firm, don’t lose momentum or resources. Our veteran legal marketers will bridge the gap for as long as you need, and not a moment more. ⏰ For extra hands - When you don’t have enough experienced hands on deck for your most urgent and important projects, we’ll jump in and pinch-hit for your team so you never miss out on an opportunity or an RFP. ⏰ To build a plan - Even the best law firms get stuck on their marketing planning. Our focused strategic planning meeting is designed to get you moving forward again. But don’t take it from us. Here’s what one satisfied law firm COO had to say about our on-demand legal marketing services- "One thing I want to amplify that your team does that is so helpful - is provide stop-gap help when someone on a marketing team goes on leave. That is something that inevitably happens on teams where CMO2Go, Inc. can sub in.” Want to lock in your 2024 rates now so you can use these hours in 2025? Reach out to us at info@cmo2go.co to find out more about this package - but don’t delay, we've got less than three weeks to go on 2024!

48% of lateral lawyers leave their new firm within the first five years. And 35% who stay struggle to fit into the law firm’s culture. But the good news is - this situation is entirely preventable! As Benjamin Franklin once said - an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And, law firms who take the time to formalize the onboarding and integration process for laterals BEFORE their arrival will have much more luck with laterals than waiting until after they’ve already signed the paperwork. Here are a few things that law firms can do to help ensure laterals are well integrated into the firm: 🎯 Have a Formally Defined Process - Ensure that onboarding and integration processes are already in place with clearly defined procedures and roles. 🎯 Train Your People on Interviewing Techniques - Train the lawyers who will be interviewing potential lateral hires on how to do it properly, ensuring that they’re not all asking the same questions or treating it as more of a networking situation.  🎯 Assign Partner Sponsors - Every lateral lawyer can benefit from a go-to person for their questions, ideally a partner, who is available to answer. 👇 Watch this clip featuring Erika Steinberg, Founder of CMO2Go and Elizabeth Kennedy, Founder of New Edge BD as they discuss law firms’ lateral integration challenges. What’s not working in your law firm’s lateral integration process right now - and how can we help? https://lnkd.in/eJS_Cmec

As women’s presence in law has grown, is there still a place in the legal world for “business development for women?” Or, has the concept become obsolete? In order to explore this topic, CMO2Go founder Erika Steinberg interviewed several law firm partners and business development professionals for her November 15th, 2024 article published in The American Bar Association's Law Practice Today titled, “Are Women’s Business Development Initiatives Still Needed?” Most interviewees believe that as women’s presence in law has grown, business development opportunities aimed at women lawyers have become more available. But business development has evolved in the last 20 years, and creating engaging business development opportunities that focus on lawyers’ interests vs. their gender has become an increasingly popular approach. And, opening up those business development initiatives to include men has been eye-opening for some. To quote Ellen Leikind of PokerDivas - “Recently, we hosted a business development program for a law firm in New York. There were two men who attended out of about 50 people. I had a call with one of them about having an event for his company and he thanked me. He said that he experienced for the first time how women must feel when they are only one of a few in the room.” We are grateful to The American Bar Association for publishing our article on this important topic! Also, a huge thank you to those who agreed to be interviewed for this article: Casie Zimmerman Davidson, Partner, Simon, Peragine, Smith & Redfearn  Cari Grieb Partner, Chapman and Cutler Steve Fretzin, Fretzin, Inc. and Host, Be That Lawyer podcast Ellen Leikind, Founder, PokerDivas Randi Mason, Partner, Morrison Cohen Bonnie Lee Polk, Partner, Williams Parker Randi Rosenblatt, CEO of Upward Stride 👇 Read the official article reprint below: https://lnkd.in/eeGcTXr8

Did you know that almost half of lateral lawyers leave their new firm within the first five years of joining? It’s a real challenge for law firms to get lateral integration right, which could be one reason for that shocking statistic. To help law firms crack the lateral integration code, CMO2Go founder Erika Steinberg brought some law firm marketing experts together to gather their insights on how to best integrate lateral lawyers into law firms - and, just as importantly, integrate law firms with the laterals. One of the biggest challenges that occurs is when a law firm’s internal team doesn’t have the bandwidth for proper integration work. In this case, law firms have a few options: 🧩Increase the bandwidth of the internal marketing team, 🧩 Centralize lateral integration functions rather than divide them among various HR/marketing staff, 🧩 Contract with consultants or fractionals who have the bandwidth and expertise needed. For law firms whose lateral integration is hampered by lack of bandwidth or expertise, the veteran legal marketers at CMO2Go have decades of law firm experience that allow us to easily step in and work closely with in-house teams. Laterals can bring many benefits to law firms, but many of those benefits are lost if they leave too soon. By cracking the lateral integration code, firms can turn integration into a two-way street benefiting everyone involved. Much gratitude to the lateral experts Erika relied on to get a fuller picture of the lateral integration landscape: Elizabeth Kennedy Erin Ryan Lesley Kagan Wynes Read the full post here and learn how to crack the lateral integration code for your firm: https://lnkd.in/eJS_Cmec

Why do mid-size law firms seek out CMO2Go? They seek us out because our fractional marketing support is designed exclusively for law firms, and handles their most urgent and important marketing needs with a team of veteran legal marketers. Here’s how we’ve supported our clients lately - ▶ By handling an urgent need - A mid-sized firm contacted us in a bit of a panic because they needed support responding to an urgent RFP for a critical client within two weeks. Our team of veteran marketers, who have expertise working on RFPs for global mega firms, collaborated with their legal team to draft and edit responses to the varied questions. In addition, our expert  coached our client on what companies look for in RFP responses and created content that they could use in this instance and in the future. Our client was named to the panel and also expanded their work with their client. ▶ By building a plan - We created strategic plans for a mid-size law firm's new office and a critical industry team, meeting with two groups of lawyers to guide them through CMO2Go’s marketing planning process. Our process, which focuses on pragmatic growth, resulted in realistic marketing plans that we’re now executing with the firm’s in-house team. ▶ By being their extra hands - Our client planned to grow and wanted to update their messaging accordingly, but needed more hands on the project to get it done. CMO2Go began by conducting competitive analyses in their current and new locations. Using what we learned, we created their brand personas and psychographics, and then our design team produced their new visual identity including logo, color palettes and typography. Finally, we tied it all together with consistent messaging for the firm and for each practice, ensuring it all reflected the firm's new brand and personality. ▶ By bridging a gap - We routinely mentor junior marketing team members and act as the fractional senior marketing executive for some of our clients. And, if a senior member of the marketing team leaves, our veteran legal marketing team can bridge the gap to keep the marketing momentum going while our clients recruit, hire and onboard a new person. Our firm may be called CMO2Go - but our clients say we produce results that last long after we’re gone.

In six months, one of our law firm clients turned their specific area of expertise into a content powerhouse. It all started when we worked with two partners at the firm to write content about their specific area of expertise. But we didn’t stop there - we made sure to distribute that content on their website and on their LinkedIn page. And then, a publisher saw it - who reached out to the firm asking for an article specifically focused on their area of expertise. That article was published, and one marketing action led to another, keeping this firm top of mind for their audience. 👇 Watch this clip featuring Erika Steinberg, Founder of CMO2Go, as she shares the story about the power of a marketing “snowball” with Keith Reynolds and Tom Dempsey of Publio on their SMarketPlace™ Live podcast. How have you gotten momentum from your marketing actions lately? #LegalMarketing #LawFirmMarketing #CMO2Go https://lnkd.in/egbh9g4u

When your law firm wants to communicate a message to your audience, are you tailoring the message to each type of stakeholder? A mid-sized law firm we worked with went through a major leadership change. And they asked CMO2Go to help them develop messages that communicated this change to all of their stakeholders through all the right channels. Some of the key talking points of the messaging included that the firm itself remained unchanged, and clients would still experience the same level of service and care that they’d experienced in the past. In this clip from Julie Livingston’s WantLeverage podcast, CMO2Go Founder Erika Steinberg discussed the importance of creating tailored, consistent messaging for internal and external stakeholders - including firm associates and partners, vendors, referral sources, recruits, and even law school administrators who send interns to the firm. Once the message is clear, it’s important to ensure it’s delivered through a variety of channels - not limited to one social media post or website update. Your distribution channels could include: 🎯 Pitch and RFP materials,  🎯 Social and traditional media,  🎯 Website content,  🎯 Recruiting materials,  🎯Directory submissions, ..and, of course, your elevator pitch. How is your firm ensuring that the right message gets delivered to the right stakeholders in the right places? #LegalMarketing #LawFirmMarketing #CMO2Go https://lnkd.in/egbh9g4u

Thinking about moving into legal marketing from another sector? Check out this article that our founder, Erika Steinberg, wrote for New York Law Journal. She spoke with four legal marketing veterans who made the same move. Their feedback and experience is certain to be helpful to others.