Transforming a breaking legal news pitch into an ongoing industry trade column opportunity

Client situation

A longtime agency partner of Reputation Ink approached our legal public relations team for assistance in finding media opportunities for an NLJ 500 law firm with offices across the United States. The Florida-based partner wanted interviews and article placements with national legal and hospitality trade publications where she could provide practical advice to hotels on preventing sex trafficking from occurring on their properties. The issue was timely in that there had been a recent string of highly publicized sex trafficking incidents at hotels across the United States, and many were likely looking for legal counsel to assist with risk management and prevention.

Our solution

Reputation Ink’s legal PR team has enjoyed an established track record securing media opportunities for attorney and law firm clients in industry trades pertinent to their practice areas — in addition to legal trades such as Law360 and Bloomberg Law. Our team was excited to rise to the challenge of placing this accomplished partner before influential hotel industry executives.

We leveraged our deep experience in niche public relations strategies to develop a pitch that communicated the partner’s desire to speak and write on both recent sex trafficking developments and several related topics relevant to hotel industry executives. In coordination with members of the agency’s architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) PR team, Rep Ink’s legal PR group also developed a media list of publications that would appeal to high-net-worth hoteliers and other hospitality professionals.

Results

After a thorough pitching process, Reputation Ink secured interest from several hospitality publications for bylined articles and contributed content. Among those was Hotel Executive, an outlet focused on the type of audience the law firm partner had been gunning for: influential decision-makers and executives in the hotel industry. 

Fortunately, this editor was interested in more than just one of the bulleted article topics we offered. In fact, he commissioned a three-article series from that partner to dive into various topics of interest around sex trafficking in hotels and how employee training could help hoteliers mitigate risks around these incidents. 

Although the partner did complete two of the three articles in her series, she advised Reputation Ink that she believed the two articles she published with Hotel Executive were enough to accomplish her objectives — and that a third would not be as useful for the publication’s readership. As a result, Reputation Ink worked with the agency partner to identify an attorney from the same firm who could take over the Florida partner’s column commitment. After pitching the new lawyer to the publication, the editor commissioned two more articles for 2023 and offered her a quarterly column for 2024. 

When marketing your services, it’s best to meet your prospects where they are — and offer perspectives that speak to their interest. With Reputation Ink’s help, the NLJ 500 law firm secured an ongoing multi-year, quarterly bylined article opportunity with a widely read hospitality business trade. This long-term placement will allow the firm to distribute its thought leadership and promote a bench of experienced hotel industry practitioners to the decision-makers who put pen to paper on legal spending decisions.

“Reputation Ink has been a fantastic partner in helping place our attorney clients in relevant niche trades. They really think through their placement strategies in ways that make an impact and steer lawyers toward meeting their publicity objectives.”

Agency partner