Most people are familiar with influencer marketing – the concept of using popular social media influencers to promote your business. Working with influencers can sometimes break the budget of a small business. This is where trademark lawyers come into play.
What are trademark lawyers?
Trademark lawyers differ from influencers in several important ways. The influencer's goal in promoting your product or service is to make money for yourself or to grow your followers / fan base. The relationship is transactional: if you stop paying them, they stop promoting you – it's that simple.
Trademark lawyers are not there for the money. You are regular customers who would like to tell others about your company because:
- You think your business is great.
- They want to help their friends find great things.
- They like to share their opinions.
- They enjoy being known as the person who always has a recommendation for the best restaurant, landscape designer, or hairdresser in town.
Most trademark attorneys are already clients of your company, but there are other ways you can hire potential trademark attorneys (more on this below).
What Trademark Lawyers Can Do For Your Business
Customers know that well-known celebrities and social media influencers are paid to advertise the products or services they share on social media. As a result, they can be skeptical of how great the product or service really is.
However, when customers see a friend who writes about a product or service, they are more likely to pay attention and find the advertisement credible. In fact, it doesn't even seem to be an "advertisement", just a real appreciation of the product. This authenticity gives proponents of customer brands a value that money cannot buy.
Where to find trademark lawyers
There are several ways to find potential trademark lawyers:
- Sales documents: Your sellers or sales documents (especially for a B2B or service company) can tell you which customers buy from you most often, who are the most loyal customers and who spends the most .
- Social Media: Pay attention to your social media accounts and the customers who deal with you there. Use social listening tools to search for posts outside of your accounts that mention your company, product, or service. Don't forget local social media websites like Nextdoor. You can often find people on these websites who ask for recommendations for local businesses or services. Look for mentions of your company and you will be surprised who recommends you.
- Online Reviews: Check out your online reviews to see who gives you great reviews. (Even customers who post negative reviews can become trademark attorneys if they solve their problem and make them happy customers.)
- Email Marketing: Monitor the analysis of your email marketing campaigns to determine which customers always open their emails or click through their emails and what they do afterwards .
- Online Search: You can find potential trademark lawyers who may not be clients by searching for people who frequently post on topics related to your business. For example, if your company sells household goods, look for people who write a lot about cooking or home entertainment. (For this type of trademark lawyer, make sure that they match your target customer profile.)
- Staff: Your staff may also be trademark attorneys, but it is important to make sure that this looks authentic. If your employees really use and love your products – for example, if you own a hair salon and your stylists like to try new hair colors – it can be effective to encourage employees to post and share about your company. But if it sounds like your employees are forced to promote your business, it will backfire.
If you found some potential trademark lawyers, contact them to connect. Get involved with them on social media. Comment or reply to their posts or tweets that are relevant to your company. Send an email or a direct message thanking you for your positive thoughts about your company and checking to see if you would like to continue.
