The Legal Mac section of the February 2009 Law Practice Today features the article "Marketing & Macs" by Victor J. Medina:
Not just for creative types anymore! A long-time staple of the technology needs of designers, ad agencies, etc., Macs are now worthy opponents of PCs when it comes to the needs of "serious" people. Read more about the ever-growing list of applications designed to help you market your business.
Marketing can mean a lot of things when you are dealing with a law practice these days. Technology has given rise to a new class of marketing activities and the flattening of the world has allowed many attorneys to handle most of their marketing from their living room (or office desk). With all of the services offered on the Internet, lawyers can now design and print their own business cards and brochures online – and many are doing so. More importantly, those attorneys who can create things that are decidedly in the talented-amateur level of design will be able to distinguish themselves from their competition. That’s where Macs come in.
It is well-known that Macs have been, and are, the go-to computer choice for people in the creative world. Most of the notable bloggers, ad agencies, and writers all use Mac computers. (Tom Clancy is even credited with saying, “Never ask a man what kind of computer he drives. If it’s a Mac, he’ll tell you. If not, why embarrass him.”) What’s lesser known is the fact that Macs are becoming the go-to computer for “serious” people who want to separate themselves from the pack in business.
One of the reasons for shift is the ease by which people can just fire up their Mac computers and get to work, without all of the configuration, tweaking, troubleshooting and layers of protection of Windows machines.. The analogy I use to describe the Mac Advantage is that most people just want to drive a car, they don’t want to roll underneath and adjust the sparkplugs. Macs are the same way – these computers become the tool by which you get other work done, without spending time on learning how to make the tool work. Macs let you build a house, without having to design, repair and “tweak” the hammer.
When it comes to marketing, there are few applications that set the Mac apart and illustrate this advantage clearly. The first is Apple’s homegrown iWork suite. iWork is a suite of applications that help you create Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentation – the Mac way. (Actually, I lifted that last part directly from Apple’s website. See how simple, direct and usable their stuff is?)
The first application is Pages. Pages is Apple’s version of Microsoft Word, but with a lot more flexibility. One part word-processor, one part page layout tool, Pages allows Mac users to create impressive-looking newsletters, flyers, brochures, posters, business cards and invitations. With over 180 templates from which to choose, your document starts out looking great and gets better from there. Using the templates as a guide, you can drop in your own text into placeholders, import your own pictures from iPhoto (or the ones you buy from a place like iStockPhoto), or even tables and charts to make your document the most compelling it can be. With alignment and spacing guides, you can easily see whether your image is centered and see if objects are spaced evenly. In the end, you have a professional-quality resume or brochure created without the help of expensive marketing professionals and without too much investment of time. This high-level materials sets you apart from the other lawyers in your area.
Another example is Keynote. Keynote is Apple’s version of Microsoft PowerPoint, but without the boardroom boredom. Apple provides you with 44 top-quality themes upon which to build your presentation. This application also has those helpful alignment guides and allows you to create images with simple shape-masking tools. You can also create stunning graphics with a tool that automatically removes the background from any image. Keynote includes some jaw-dropping animations and effects to help your audience’s eyes riveted on the screen.
While both of these applications have their Microsoft corollaries, Pages and Keynote are light years ahead of Word and Powerpoint. Not only do Pages and Keynote allow you to create beautifully designed marketing pieces, but it’s super easy to do. There’s a very small learning curve and you can quickly get to the talented-amatuer level of creative design in a single afternoon. The ability to handle these things on your own, and in such a professional matter, allows Mac-using attorneys to do to be economical and effective marketers.
I use a few other applications in my marketing efforts, although not all of them are Mac-specific. Mac attorneys can run a powerful, cross-platform relational database, such as Filemaker, that allows them to maintain a contact with potential clients and referral partners. I also use Adobe Acrobat Professional that allows me to create and distribute forms to anyone and I can track results by email, if I want to.
Some of the advantages of using Macs in your marketing efforts are not the obvious ones related to design and presentations. One of the most useful attributes of Mac computers is the way it instantly recognizes displays and printers without the need to find, install and configure drivers. This means that Mac-users can arrive to a presentation with just their computer and maybe a cord adapter and be up and running in no time. Similarly, the model I use, the Macbook Air, comes with an LED screen that is “instant-on” when I open the lid. This allows me to move right into a presentation or note-taking session with a client, without waiting for the computer to wake up. As the commercial says, it just works.
I’ve also found that the simple acts of owning a Mac (and more accurately, displaying it at opportune moments) has served as an excellent marketing tool. An office run exclusively with Mac computers is novel and separates me from the crowd. There is also a certain impression made when the laptop opens and the glowing white apple is displayed to the crowd.
As you can see, Macs allow you to run both the creative and administrative parts of your marketing in a way that sets you apart from your Windows-using counterparts.
Source: "Marketing & Macs" by Victor J. Medina, published at Law Practice Today.
Word 2008, does have several features in the Project Gallery and Inspector, i.e. the scrapbook, that are very useful. However, Pages is more stable, cheaper, and easier to use than Word. I think that for most users Pages is preferable.
For marketing, don’t forget about the iLife suite of services including iWeb, that when coupled with Mobile Me is very easy way to publish a web site and with only a small amount training, I recommend lynda.com.
Macs generally are superior in every way that matters. They start up faster, crash rarely, are (for now) free from viruses. OS 10.5 (Leopard) has a back up utility called Time Machine that is incredibly easy to use and something many attorneys desperately need.
With respect to Pages, although it may do well for marketing materials, it is simply unsuitable for the regular practice of law for most lawyers. Pages does not break footnotes across pages. This creates absolutely horrendous looking documents when you have a long or medium length footnote. It is absolutely inexcusable that Apple failed to fix this problem in iWork ’09. The suite remains an excellent bargain (Keynote is well worth the price alone), but an additional word processor is necessary for most lawyers.