A New Year for Law Firms, Marketing same old strategy and investment as last year?

Law firms are facing stiff competition from their peers

And yet many law firms continue to invest in ‘run of the mill’ marketing which yields little or no success, the tangibles are often categorised under the ‘grey area’ of marketing and its non return on investment. Professional Services Marketing is a form of ‘niche’ marketing granted, in my opinion for too long it has remained behind ‘Professional Services Marketing’, being a late adopter of new proven marketing initiatives, it should take the lead.

On your website do you include ‘publications’ ‘news’ ‘brochures’? If so, this an example of ‘run of the mill marketing’, your firm should at the very least in this digital age include ‘blogs’ ‘webinars’ ‘videos’. Don’t get me wrong there are some parts of ‘run of the mill’ marketing that show a return on investment, we work with our clients to ensure they maximise the returns on ‘effective’ and ‘run of the mill’ marketing.

Ask yourself is your marketing, your personal brand, that of your practice area, and that of your firm, proactive or inactive? Do you find yourself or your colleagues printing out brochures at midnight prior to leaving for a conference? Do you send out your practice area/firm newsletter to all contacts? Produce a practice area brochure and post up on your site? Run an event and also post up on your website? Repeat yourself at the introductory stage without charging the billable hour?

There are many many more examples I can add to the above, all of which fall under ‘run of the mill’ marketing. You’re comfortable where you are now, for a law firm to compete, to invest in efficient marketing, means changing the mindset, law firms are often reluctant to change. Why invest in and adopt ‘run of the mill marketing’ adopted by a high number of law firms? How many law firms have a brochurial website, worse still that’s not responsive? That this website describes how ‘wonderful’ the firm is, how ‘big’ the firm is – Finscoms work with law firms to move away from ‘vanity’ marketing to ‘converting’ the recipient/user to contact you for more information.

I would argue that ‘run of the mill marketing’ does little or nought to increase an awareness of the firm, its practice areas, or its fee earners, nor to increase its brand equity. To give you an example, if you send out a newsletter, many clog up the recipient’s inbox, or go directly to spam, with those that do get through the various email filters often are of little or no relevance, leading to negative branding ‘why is this firm sending me this newsletter when it is not my area of interest?’

Effective and efficient investment into marketing and business development is where the the smart law firms are at, they can show that they are comfortable working in a traditional and digital environment, creating that all important first impression.

By becoming your own publisher (why pay to place your expertise?), by adopting ‘effective’ marketing, you will for example drive quantifiable traffic to your site, that those researching your firm can do so on a pc, tablet, phone, build online communities around your practice areas. Webinars are the best tool to enable you to market and communicate to your target audience globally, we work with our clients to adopt and implement a webinar strategy.

Video marketing is where the action is, a video has many purposes from when you are dealing with a referral/client/potential client, monitors in reception/conferences, youtube, Mondaq, videos are used to convert the viewer, drive traffic to your site, but more importantly a video blog is the most effective way to market/communicate period. Whether you are a large firm (Norton Rose Fullbright) or a small firm (GANADO Advocates in Malta) video blogs build online communities, this is one of the best investments you can make, do contact me to explore how video not only ticks all the right boxes, is affordable, but saves you time and can generate new income.

Social media presents the opportunity for you and your firm to build online communities, how you engage with social media, content marketing is often the difference between failure and success.

Linkedin with over 4 million registered users is arguably the largest legal directory, why then is it not supported in the same way as legal directories? There are other examples of content marketing like Mondaq which not only distribute your content onto say Reuters, Lexis Nexis, Dow Jones, but through their website they tell you who has read your article including full contact details/email address.

Be smart with your investment into marketing, show the tangibles, marketing is no longer a poisoned chalice, it is now embedded in all that we do on a daily basis, get it right then its a great place to be….

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