Helping solicitors market themselves online
SUSAN Bourke was training solicitors in digital marketing when she noticed many were struggling to market their firms online. SO, she set up LegalRSS.ie, a powerful yet simple online marketing platform specifically for solicitors and legal services businesses in Ireland – a unique service in this country. Susan pre-launched the business in February this year and already has a strong number of clients countrywide. One of the first firms to sign up saw traffic to its website surge by 121 per cent in one month.
LegalRSS.ie provides clients with a variety of essential and targeted marketing solutions including a content management platform, social media management, image and article archives, unlimited newsfeed creation and searching, and broad legal news content. Susan heads up a team of highly-qualified and professional writers which include retained court reporters and top-class editors. LegalRSS.ie is a partner of LegalRSS.co.uk, which was set up in 1997 by well-known professional practice marketing consultant Joe Reevy. Ms Bourke says: “Since 2008, I have been working with the Law Society of Ireland on their CPD Cluster events so I had first-hand experience of solicitors nationwide struggling to market their firm on the web and social media sites. I could see that they all knew they needed to keep their websites up to date but they either did not have the time or the expertise to do it. They needed someone to help them create valuable legal content for their clients, and that’s where I got the idea to bring LegalRSS to Ireland.” Susan, who is based in Sligo, knows both the legal and the marketing sectors inside out. Married to a solicitor herself, she worked for ten years in a legal firm and provides training for the Law Society. She also ran her own marketing and training consultancy and has a Masters in Digital Marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute in Dublin. Susan’s first client was her husband’s firm – Michael Monahan Solicitors – who last week won the national – and Connacht/Ulster — ‘Excellence in Client Service’ award at the Irish Law Awards 2018.
“We are delighted that one of our earliest believers and clients Michael Monahan Solicitors has won the regional and overall award for excellence in client service, which was attributed to their constant delivery of updated, relevant and valuable legal news,” says Susan. She has long-standing entrepreneurial roots, starting 11 years ago when she sold DVD box sets online which showed people how to create webinars.
“It was then I got the bug of selling online. After that, I created an e-book on how to treat headlice and it was bought by a company in New Zealand and I am still getting the royalties from that. “I also ran my own marketing and training consultancy firm and it was working with solicitors through that company that I saw the huge need that was out there for specific legal content services. Our fast, easy-to-use content management system has fully integrated email, mobile and social networking, it will save money and time, and grow brands and profits for law firms.”