June 30, 2025 • 11 mins
I spoke with Sonya Palmer, the Senior Vice President of Operations at Rankings.io, a marketing company for lawyers. We discussed how digital transformation is reshaping legal marketing in 2025, the types of marketing law firms should prioritize to stay competitive, and the key elements of a strong legal brand.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services.
This is Ari Kaplan, and I'm speakingtoday with Sonya Palmer, the Senior Vice
(00:25):
President of operations@rankings.io,a marketing company for lawyers.
Hi Sonya.
How are you?
I'm good, Ari.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm looking forward to thisconversation, so Me too.
So tell us about your backgroundand your role@rankings.io.
I am the Senior Vice President ofOperations at Ranking, so I oversee all
(00:49):
of our client fulfillment, all of ourclient delivery, all of the different
services that we cover for our clients'.
Marketing needs.
I've been with the company nine years now.
So my background is SEO Content Technical.
That's where I get real geeky.
But legal industry now.
I've been a part of itfor almost 10 years.
And then I also host Law Her, whichwas the podcast we started about
(01:10):
three years ago after we noticed that,there was a lack of representation
for women in the legal industry.
There were so many women thatwere doing good work and had
their own firms, but weren'tnecessarily spotlighted or upfront.
And so we started the podcast tohighlight them, and it's been amazing.
Have loved talking to them, learningabout how they're starting their
(01:31):
firms and growing their firms, andhiring people, marketing, taking
care of their clients, all of that.
How is digital transformationreshaping legal marketing in 2025?
How isn't it reshapinglegal marketing in 2025?
In really any way thatyou would want it to.
The biggest one is datait's now much easier to.
(01:57):
Get data, access data, qualify thatdata, clean that data is a term that
keeps getting tossed around now.
And then collect it, analyze it,use it to figure out what marketing
channel to move into where yourleads are coming from, what your
clients are thinking and feeling.
(02:17):
That aspect is accelerated, but alsosomewhat underlooked at it's an easy
one to implement that I think lawfirms would really benefit from.
Post pandemic customers, clients,want to interact with an attorney
the same way that they order a pizza.
They want to be able to pop openin their phone, search, text
the person, text the firm, get areply, figure out what's happening.
(02:40):
They don't wanna have tomake a phone call, go into an
office, have an appointment.
So anything that the firms can do touse digital, anything to help meet
those clients where they're alreadyat is greatly going to benefit them.
What types of marketing should lawfirms prioritize to stay competitive?
(03:00):
Every type of marketing.
For a long time you couldcapture awareness that already
existed with search with PPC.
Now it is more about creating theawareness so that you can then capture it.
So I really think that all channelsshould be considered for all
(03:22):
types of law firms, whether that'scontent marketing or organic search.
Pay per click, paid social, organic,social, even going to traditional
TV bulletin boards, streaming.
Having an overall marketingstrategy that's going to collect
or have a strategy for each ofthose channels is really important.
(03:44):
And you can have the same production, youcan have similar assets that get pushed
out to all of those different things.
And then again, I would go back tothe data, paying attention to, hey.
Everybody talks about TikTok, but ifmost of your engagement is on Facebook,
put more into Facebook, trying to notignore, but instead of looking just
(04:05):
at the trends, what does your datasay about your own marketing efforts?
If you don't know where tostart, prioritizing video
content podcasts are great.
Go on a podcast, some thought leadership.
You get to chat about the stuffthat you're really knowledgeable
about, and then you have, 30, 40minutes of content that you can
chop up that you didn't have to pay.
(04:27):
You have to pay a producer or a bigvideographer have this big style shoot.
You've got content youcan start pushing out.
What are the key elementsof a strong legal brand?
That's shifting as well.
For a long time, there was a very strongarchetype of what a successful attorney
looks like, every state has a hammer.
(04:49):
I don't know that weneed any more hammers.
I think a lot of what firmsshould do is find out what their
actual unique identifiers are.
Be yourself, why didyou become an attorney?
Why did you start a law firm?
How did you wanna help your clients?
What makes you different fromall of these other firms?
'cause it's extremely competitive.
(05:11):
Always going back tocustomer, client focused.
So many attorneys.
Get really hyperfocused on theresults, the dollar amounts that
they're able to win for their clients.
And I think that paying closer attentionto that entire client journey can
help identify and define their brand.
What are their clients feelas they're working with them.
(05:34):
It's a good place to start.
What best practices should law firms applyto attract and retain clients through
their marketing innovation initiatives?
Communication is another placewhere automation can help.
This is where AI can help.
We'll still keep things human.
(05:54):
We've seen some data that, if a law firmdoes not answer the phone or reply within.
20 minutes, they move on to the next.
So making sure that your intake, yourattribution is super dialed in, that
you have the ability to pick thatphone up, get them intake, get them
(06:14):
talking to an attorney as soon aspossible is gonna be their, the best
practice to keeping those clients.
And then that can be part of themarketing strategy as well, because
what we see across all of thesechannels is user review ratings.
If you provide a good service andyou take care of that client, that
customer, you can then ask them fora positive review and those positive
(06:37):
reviews are like currency right now.
Good customer service cancontribute to leveraged marketing.
How can legal professionalsbuild and leverage B2B referral
networks more effectively?
Couple of different ways.
I'm gonna go back to short form contentthat can be created from podcasts.
(06:58):
I have seen some really successfulattorneys setting up that they're
doing the sort of front of house work.
If they can partner with theback of house people who don't
necessarily want to be in social.
So finding the people that are outthere on the social networks that
are making the content, partneringwith them, but then also conferences.
(07:20):
There's so many legal conferences.
Some do it really well.
The networking that happensat conferences is really about
referral partnerships being built.
We put a personal injury marketingconference on in October in Arizona.
It's completely niche.
It's just personal injury lawyers.
It's PIM Con on Octoberin Scottsdale, Arizona.
(07:41):
It's our second one.
What common marketing mistakes shouldlegal professionals avoid void?
Not showing gratitude or appreciationaround referrals can sometimes
(08:02):
hurt them.
Just maintaining the relationshipwith referral partners and the people
who are providing the leads in simpleways, like saying thank you can go a
really long way to strengthen that.
Following trends, sometimes what theysee in one attorney, what they see
working somewhere else they try to mimicit instead of just authentically trying
to find their own way of doing things.
(08:22):
Not sticking to plans, ittakes a long time to know if
what you're doing is working.
You can't switch gears every two weeks.
Oh, we put this money into metaads, but 30 days later it's
not, it hasn't generated a lead.
That's not enough time.
You need six months.
You need nine months to reallyevaluate if a marketing strategy is
working, and that's even conservative.
(08:44):
Really.
A year, 15 months would be better.
So give it time.
How do you see AI and automationtransforming legal marketing?
In what way?
Isn't it going totransform legal marketing?
I hope that law firms, that legalprofessionals marketing understand
(09:05):
that AI is more than chat, GPT.
Chat, GPT is one tool.
It's a great tool, but there are so manythings out there that can be done and
things get introduced literally every day.
So to expand if chat GBTItried it once, it didn't work.
It gave me a poor response.
Don't let that hinder you fromcontinuing to utilize or try
(09:28):
to search for other things.
If you have a spreadsheet of leadschannels, referrals, you can give
that to an ai, it will run theanalysis for you and it will tell you
your cost per click on paid social.
Is this your organic traffic?
Is this, it was that.
You can get that analysis from an AItool versus trying to come through
(09:48):
it yourself or paying a consultingfirm to tell you where your leads
are coming from and what it means.
It can help make a lot ofnumbers and a lot of data.
Make sense?
If you can come up with a good branda decent amount of content that is
good, you can then have AI spit outendless amounts of content that you
(10:09):
can reproduce and put everywhere.
Then also going back to the customerjourney, the client experience, you
can target that very specifically.
You can use AI to find out whatdemographics are clicking on what
things and what taglines and what.
Copy is resonating.
(10:30):
You can specifically fine tuneit to people who have been in car
accidents, people who have experienceda birth injury, medical malpractice.
You can tailor those messages specificallyto people with not like a large lift
with a little bit of understanding.
You can really dial all of those inand then it just makes making those
big marketing decisions a lot easier.
(10:52):
This is Ari Kaplan speaking withSonja Palmer, the Senior Vice
President of operations@rankings.io,a marketing company for lawyers.
Sonja, thank you so very much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals Podcast.
Visit reinventing professionals.com orari kaplan advisors.com to learn more.
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services.
This is Ari Kaplan, and I'm speakingtoday with Sonya Palmer, the Senior Vice
(00:25):
President of operations@rankings.io,a marketing company for lawyers.
Hi Sonya.
How are you?
I'm good, Ari.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm looking forward to thisconversation, so Me too.
So tell us about your backgroundand your role@rankings.io.
I am the Senior Vice President ofOperations at Ranking, so I oversee all
(00:49):
of our client fulfillment, all of ourclient delivery, all of the different
services that we cover for our clients'.
Marketing needs.
I've been with the company nine years now.
So my background is SEO Content Technical.
That's where I get real geeky.
But legal industry now.
I've been a part of itfor almost 10 years.
And then I also host Law Her, whichwas the podcast we started about
(01:10):
three years ago after we noticed that,there was a lack of representation
for women in the legal industry.
There were so many women thatwere doing good work and had
their own firms, but weren'tnecessarily spotlighted or upfront.
And so we started the podcast tohighlight them, and it's been amazing.
Have loved talking to them, learningabout how they're starting their
(01:31):
firms and growing their firms, andhiring people, marketing, taking
care of their clients, all of that.
How is digital transformationreshaping legal marketing in 2025?
How isn't it reshapinglegal marketing in 2025?
In really any way thatyou would want it to.
The biggest one is datait's now much easier to.
(01:57):
Get data, access data, qualify thatdata, clean that data is a term that
keeps getting tossed around now.
And then collect it, analyze it,use it to figure out what marketing
channel to move into where yourleads are coming from, what your
clients are thinking and feeling.
(02:17):
That aspect is accelerated, but alsosomewhat underlooked at it's an easy
one to implement that I think lawfirms would really benefit from.
Post pandemic customers, clients,want to interact with an attorney
the same way that they order a pizza.
They want to be able to pop openin their phone, search, text
the person, text the firm, get areply, figure out what's happening.
(02:40):
They don't wanna have tomake a phone call, go into an
office, have an appointment.
So anything that the firms can do touse digital, anything to help meet
those clients where they're alreadyat is greatly going to benefit them.
What types of marketing should lawfirms prioritize to stay competitive?
(03:00):
Every type of marketing.
For a long time you couldcapture awareness that already
existed with search with PPC.
Now it is more about creating theawareness so that you can then capture it.
So I really think that all channelsshould be considered for all
(03:22):
types of law firms, whether that'scontent marketing or organic search.
Pay per click, paid social, organic,social, even going to traditional
TV bulletin boards, streaming.
Having an overall marketingstrategy that's going to collect
or have a strategy for each ofthose channels is really important.
(03:44):
And you can have the same production, youcan have similar assets that get pushed
out to all of those different things.
And then again, I would go back tothe data, paying attention to, hey.
Everybody talks about TikTok, but ifmost of your engagement is on Facebook,
put more into Facebook, trying to notignore, but instead of looking just
(04:05):
at the trends, what does your datasay about your own marketing efforts?
If you don't know where tostart, prioritizing video
content podcasts are great.
Go on a podcast, some thought leadership.
You get to chat about the stuffthat you're really knowledgeable
about, and then you have, 30, 40minutes of content that you can
chop up that you didn't have to pay.
(04:27):
You have to pay a producer or a bigvideographer have this big style shoot.
You've got content youcan start pushing out.
What are the key elementsof a strong legal brand?
That's shifting as well.
For a long time, there was a very strongarchetype of what a successful attorney
looks like, every state has a hammer.
(04:49):
I don't know that weneed any more hammers.
I think a lot of what firmsshould do is find out what their
actual unique identifiers are.
Be yourself, why didyou become an attorney?
Why did you start a law firm?
How did you wanna help your clients?
What makes you different fromall of these other firms?
'cause it's extremely competitive.
(05:11):
Always going back tocustomer, client focused.
So many attorneys.
Get really hyperfocused on theresults, the dollar amounts that
they're able to win for their clients.
And I think that paying closer attentionto that entire client journey can
help identify and define their brand.
What are their clients feelas they're working with them.
(05:34):
It's a good place to start.
What best practices should law firms applyto attract and retain clients through
their marketing innovation initiatives?
Communication is another placewhere automation can help.
This is where AI can help.
We'll still keep things human.
(05:54):
We've seen some data that, if a law firmdoes not answer the phone or reply within.
20 minutes, they move on to the next.
So making sure that your intake, yourattribution is super dialed in, that
you have the ability to pick thatphone up, get them intake, get them
(06:14):
talking to an attorney as soon aspossible is gonna be their, the best
practice to keeping those clients.
And then that can be part of themarketing strategy as well, because
what we see across all of thesechannels is user review ratings.
If you provide a good service andyou take care of that client, that
customer, you can then ask them fora positive review and those positive
(06:37):
reviews are like currency right now.
Good customer service cancontribute to leveraged marketing.
How can legal professionalsbuild and leverage B2B referral
networks more effectively?
Couple of different ways.
I'm gonna go back to short form contentthat can be created from podcasts.
(06:58):
I have seen some really successfulattorneys setting up that they're
doing the sort of front of house work.
If they can partner with theback of house people who don't
necessarily want to be in social.
So finding the people that are outthere on the social networks that
are making the content, partneringwith them, but then also conferences.
(07:20):
There's so many legal conferences.
Some do it really well.
The networking that happensat conferences is really about
referral partnerships being built.
We put a personal injury marketingconference on in October in Arizona.
It's completely niche.
It's just personal injury lawyers.
It's PIM Con on Octoberin Scottsdale, Arizona.
(07:41):
It's our second one.
What common marketing mistakes shouldlegal professionals avoid void?
Not showing gratitude or appreciationaround referrals can sometimes
(08:02):
hurt them.
Just maintaining the relationshipwith referral partners and the people
who are providing the leads in simpleways, like saying thank you can go a
really long way to strengthen that.
Following trends, sometimes what theysee in one attorney, what they see
working somewhere else they try to mimicit instead of just authentically trying
to find their own way of doing things.
(08:22):
Not sticking to plans, ittakes a long time to know if
what you're doing is working.
You can't switch gears every two weeks.
Oh, we put this money into metaads, but 30 days later it's
not, it hasn't generated a lead.
That's not enough time.
You need six months.
You need nine months to reallyevaluate if a marketing strategy is
working, and that's even conservative.
(08:44):
Really.
A year, 15 months would be better.
So give it time.
How do you see AI and automationtransforming legal marketing?
In what way?
Isn't it going totransform legal marketing?
I hope that law firms, that legalprofessionals marketing understand
(09:05):
that AI is more than chat, GPT.
Chat, GPT is one tool.
It's a great tool, but there are so manythings out there that can be done and
things get introduced literally every day.
So to expand if chat GBTItried it once, it didn't work.
It gave me a poor response.
Don't let that hinder you fromcontinuing to utilize or try
(09:28):
to search for other things.
If you have a spreadsheet of leadschannels, referrals, you can give
that to an ai, it will run theanalysis for you and it will tell you
your cost per click on paid social.
Is this your organic traffic?
Is this, it was that.
You can get that analysis from an AItool versus trying to come through
(09:48):
it yourself or paying a consultingfirm to tell you where your leads
are coming from and what it means.
It can help make a lot ofnumbers and a lot of data.
Make sense?
If you can come up with a good branda decent amount of content that is
good, you can then have AI spit outendless amounts of content that you
(10:09):
can reproduce and put everywhere.
Then also going back to the customerjourney, the client experience, you
can target that very specifically.
You can use AI to find out whatdemographics are clicking on what
things and what taglines and what.
Copy is resonating.
(10:30):
You can specifically fine tuneit to people who have been in car
accidents, people who have experienceda birth injury, medical malpractice.
You can tailor those messages specificallyto people with not like a large lift
with a little bit of understanding.
You can really dial all of those inand then it just makes making those
big marketing decisions a lot easier.
(10:52):
This is Ari Kaplan speaking withSonja Palmer, the Senior Vice
President of operations@rankings.io,a marketing company for lawyers.
Sonja, thank you so very much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals Podcast.
Visit reinventing professionals.com orari kaplan advisors.com to learn more.
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