Two weeks have now passed since the launch of biglawrefuge. It’s been really hectic, with trying to market the website through various channels. Here are a few of the methods I’ve tried, along with how effective they’ve been:
1. Emailing law journals/tabloids (e.g. Abovethelaw)/legal blogs
Effectiveness: Low
Description: I’ve tried emailing various online content providers like Abovethelaw, the National Law Journal, the WSJ Law Blog, and other legal bloggers. So far, I’ve heard a “we’ll get back to you if we’re interested” from ATL, nothing from the NLJ or WSJ, and only one response from a legal blogger. Not sure how to really grab their attention. Maybe biglawrefuge needs to have more traffic before it’s worth of national attention.
2. Direct referrals (e.g. posting in http://www.top-law-schools.com or http://www.jdunderground.com)
Effectiveness: High
Description: I started off by announcing biglawrefuge to TLS. So far the community has been awesome. Super supportive (mostly) and I’ve gotten both great feedback and really positive responses. In many ways, that community represents the community that I’m directly marketing to. The nature of biglaw hiring is that biglaw firms take disproportionately from the top law schools and the biggest confluence of students from that background gather on TLS. Jdunderground is a MUCH smaller community. Using google analytics as a guide, TLS drives 100x more traffic.
3. Social Networking (e.g. reddit posts, facebook announcements, tweets)
Effectiveness: Medium
Description: Every time I have something worth sharing, I’ve posted it to http://www.reddit.com/r/lawschool. So far, I’ve made three self-referencing posts, which some users have not been too happy about. Not sure why it’s that big of a deal, they’re not duplicative in any sense (except maybe by having the articles hosted on the same webpage). In any case, the reddit community is large and the fact that everyone sees what’s on the frontpage makes it in many ways more effective than TLS. The last two times I’ve posted an article, my average views has tripled or quadrupled. Facebook on the other hand has been disappointing. Most likely my friends are tired of hearing about biglawrefuge, so there aren’t many clicks driven by that. Twitter has been useless, but that’s mainly because I have so few followers.
4. Direct emailing (e.g. weekly emailing of users)
Effectiveness: Medium
Description: Each week so far, I’ve sent an email to all the users who are signed up for biglawrefuge. And as I send the email, I watch google analytics to see how many users get on the site. It definitely brings people back. I’ve heard from others that email campaigns are the way to go, but it seems like a fundamental problem with emailing users is getting the users first. I understand that it’s a way to keep the momentum going, but obviously it doesn’t help to get the ball rolling.
Surprises, so far ….
1. Content rules
Last week (or was it the first week? I don’t remember), I added the ability to add articles to biglawrefuge. So far, I’ve kept this functionality locked down, but just added the ability for select users to contribute articles, subject to admin approval. What’s been extremely surprising is that the few articles I’ve written have been incredibly popular:
http://www.biglawrefuge.com/articles/2-a-day-in-the-life-of-a-biglaw-attorney
http://www.biglawrefuge.com/articles/3-how-i-left-biglaw-part-i
When I post them to reddit or TLS, it ends up generating an enormous (for me) amount of traffic. I know the articles are popular. There’s the occasional bad comment here and there, but by and large people have all stated that they really like the content. I think part of the reason for this reaction is my approach to writing the articles. I’ve been 100% transparent when writing them, not hiding the ball, even at risk of my own reputation being tarnished. That doesn’t matter. I want to bring greater transparency to the legal profession, so what better way to do so than to lead by example?
2. Law students are shy
Despite having close to 600 users now, probably 3-400 of whom are going through OCI, there have only been 159 job postings. I don’t know why law students are so secretive about this information. I guarantee that extremely few people care one way or another. So despite the thousands of views to the job postings and law firm reviews, law students are reluctant to contribute themselves. I may eventually introduce some gating in the future to encourage more contribution, but won’t do that at first. Cmon people, contribute! I built this website for you.
3. Marketing is hard, as usual
It’s a constant battle to market the website. I feel like my welcome is already wearing thin at TLS and reddit/r/lawschool. Not sure what other channels there are besides direct contacting of various law schools career services offices. And that’s an uncertainty, because I don’t know what the reception will be like. The days I publish articles, traffic jumps sharply, but of course, it’s just a temporary spike. Quickly after, the traffic mostly goes back to normal. Hopefully, by the time I run out of content, the community will mostly be self-supported.
4. Be honest with your community, and they’ll treat you well
I’ve been completely honest to the communities I’ve posted to. I don’t plan on hiding the ball from them or suddenly changing what I’m doing. I’ve been honest about the struggles of running biglawrefuge myself, with dealing with unfriendly folks, and with getting users to contribute. Thank you ALL for those who have reached out to me to encourage me in the process. It means a ton and it motivates me to continue writing and bettering biglawrefuge for you guys.
Code and Codes 