Professional Liability Magazine

Resurrecting a failing content marketing channel

Objective

Reboot the professional liability newsletter and turn it into a flagship marketing piece.

Challenges

1. Changing channel perception after two failed reboots the previous year
2. Meeting production deadlines month after month
3. Overseeing an unexpected editorial change during the busiest month of the year

Planning

In April 2017, I was tasked with rebooting the firm newsletter, Professional Liability Monthly. It hadn't been published since November 2016, and had been stalled for a few more months before that. The goal was to once again start publishing the newsletter on a regular basis and make it more engaging. I presented the idea of turning the newsletter into a magazine, with dedicated sections that included different styles of articles such as a Q&A and top five list, in addition to mid-length and deep dive analysis pieces.

While doing research on competing publications, I discovered no one was publishing under the name "professional liability magazine," leaving the keyword SEO for a common legal phrase also open to capture. During my reboot pitch, I suggested we change the name to Professional Liability Magazine to own the SEO, remove the monthly publication restriction, and indicate to readers that PLM is an entirely new type of publication.

On the back end, I worked with the then co-chair of the employment practice area to create four writing teams for the new and improved PLM. We determined that the best way to ensure we’d meet our monthly publication goal was to assign one team to each issue. This spread the workload out across the entire professional liability practice group, and allowed the attorney writers to plan for their articles in advance.

In addition to setting up teams, I created two supplemental reference pieces. The first is a process document that shows the full year’s production schedule - including deadlines for submitting articles, layout, and approval - along with a rough overview of how each issue will go from idea to publication. The second piece is a one-page writer’s guide with tips on style and tone, along with word counts for each section of the magazine.

Execution

Each issue begins with an email reminding writers that their team is up to produce content. The email contains information on deadlines and word counts, and the writer’s guide is attached for easy reference.

Once the content is in, work with the editors to review everything for grammar, subject focus, and client conflicts - an editorial task unique to the legal industry. After everything is edited, I layout the entire magazine, which includes sourcing images and building interactivity into the front and back covers, table of contents, and various ads within the magazine.

After layout is complete, the magazine goes through a second editorial review before being sent to the editors for their review and approval. During this time, I prepare the necessary email blast content and work with the digital coordinator to prep the email and social blasts. Once the issue is approved by the editors, it is published.

Distribution and Promotion

The goal for each issue is to send it out the second Wednesday of each month. Occasionally the issue is published on Tuesday or Thursday due to conflicts with other communications being sent to the same mailing list or holidays.

The same promotion plan is followed each issue:

1. Email blast through Concep to the Professional Liability practice group contacts
2. Internal email to all attorneys with links to forward the publication via or share it on LinkedIn and Twitter
3. Post directly to Goldberg Segalla LinkedIn account
4. Tweet on main Goldberg Segalla Twitter account

Occasionally the publication will be directly emailed to contacts from another practice area. This generally occurs when the feature article is written by an attorney from that practice group, or focuses on a topic relevant to those industry contacts.

Results

Since re-launching in May 2017, we have successfully published one issue every month. Engagement varies from issue to issue, often depending on the feature article subject matter. While PLM isa digital-first publication, printed copies are routinely requested by attorneys when attending conferences and meeting with clients.