Marketing the Firm vs. the Practice Area vs. the Attorney

Our agency often receives calls from individual attorneys (usually from larger firms) seeking our assistance in marketing their services. In most of these situations, these lawyers are under significant pressure to originate new business. Our advice to them is not all that different from the recommendations we might make at the firm level.

But it does raise two interesting questions. Should law firms market the firm at large, its disparate practice groups and/or its individual attorneys? And if so, how should it allocate its energies towards each?

The answer to the first part is easy. If possible, the firm should be supported at all levels. But what if resources are limited? I believe that everything goes back to doing what is best at the firm level. Why is this firm “the best?” What makes it unique? Why should someone hire it versus the other bunch of folks down the block? If one can establish a rationale for the firm’s existence (beyond providing sustenance for its partners and employees), one has already gone much further than most of the competition. As important, a halo effect is created that will carry over onto the practice groups and eventually onto individual attorneys as well. Given limited financial resources, it is critical to focus on the big picture first, then individual groups and finally individual attorneys (unless an attorney is the next incarnation of Clarence Darrow.)

Supporting individual attorneys with major cash outlays may be unfeasible. But in most cases, that’s okay. If one’s financial investment is geared toward the firm as a whole, then time can be the major source of investment at the attorney level – providing one gives the staff the freedom to do so. One can’t expect the firm’s lawyers to be originating business if they are not being given the flexibility to attend various functions, implement social media efforts, write articles, etc.

Marketing at the practice group level is where it gets a bit more complicated. As mentioned, that halo effect does carry over. However, sometimes practice groups need a bit of their own promotion. Which ones get this boost and to what degree is usually a function of the particular groups (e.g., PI usually gets a lot) and whether the firm’s marketing plan calls for leveraging particularly strong areas or beefing up relatively weaker ones. If the goal is only to get through this year, the wise choice may be to play one’s best hand. If thinking long-term however, then consideration must be given to how the weaker department is going to get from here to there. Obviously, it’s not all black and white, and sometimes office politics can get in the way (e.g., “Why do they get their own

enewsletter and we get nothing?). But again, with initial buy-in of the overall program, such problems can be somewhat mitigated. Keep in mind, as my mother often told me when I complained about what my sister was getting, “It’s not always going to be equal.” Hopefully your firm’s staff is more mature than I was at that time and can understand the nuances of resource allocation.

When It Comes to Marketing Your Law Practice, Are you Willing to Stick Your Neck Out?

Any way you slice it, the numbers are staggering. According to the American Bar Association, there are approximately 50,000 law firms in the U.S. with two or more attorneys. If you also count solo practitioners firms, the U.S. Census estimates almost 175,000 total legal establishments.

Guess what?

Not all of them can or will be ranked #1 on Google.

In fact, most won't make the first pages of the online directories.

Now, if you’re one of the 95% that won’t, and you listen to the “experts", you might as well pack up shop right now. You’re doomed. Finished. Might as well start looking for your next place of work.

But to take that attitude is to run counter to everything that marketing is to supposed be about. It’s never been about following the trend. It’s always been about bucking the trend. Sure, if your bank account allows for unlimited forays into every marketing vehicle – both online and off – then yes, you’re going to stand out, if only by the sheer volume of marketing communications you generate. But if you’re like most law firms, in fact, like almost any business, your financial resources are not unlimited and you’re going to have to rely on something else.

That “something else” is called creativity. And creativity doesn’t require lots of money. It does however, require lots of guts.  It means being willing to stick your neck out --- to run away from images of gavels, scales of justice and marble pillars and instead turning to those that truly define your firm, its reason for being, its essence. In fact, I would argue that there is an inverse relationship between marketing creativity and/or the uniqueness of the product/service with the amount of dollars one would need to invest in marketing.  Stepping aside from the legal world for a moment, imagine a pharmaceutical giant announcing the launch of its 100% proven ability to cure cancer – any cancer. How much money do you think that company would need to put into marketing? How many times would it need to run its ads? Assuming, this scenario were in fact, true, the answers would be “not a lot of money” and “not a lot of times running the ad.” In this case, the sheer uniqueness of the product would break through all of the advertising clutter everywhere.

Now consider a “me too” soap product. How much will need to be allocated to the launch of this product (in terms of marketing) in order to stand out from the competition? If you said “A lot,” you are absolutely right!

Unlike manufacturers however, law firms don’t have many opportunities to offer a “unique” service. But they have many, many opportunities to be unique in the way they market those services.

Consider, for example, a firm of litigators who pride themselves on their ability to consistently “win.” This, they claimed, was their calling card, their identity and this is what they wished to convey in their advertising. Putting aside the dubiousness of their overreaching claims as well as the fact that legal ethics precludes making such claims, the “obvious” path in creating a campaign of this sort was to show an attorney or two—perhaps smiling or congratulating themselves or a happy client.  Instead, our agency decided to make no such claim, preferring instead to focus on a baby crossing a finish line under the headline, “Jimmy Won the 5 Yard Dash in 27.2 Seconds.” We had created a firm tagline that asked, “What Does Winning Mean to You?” and together, their message was implicitly clear – this firm could help you cross the finish line regardless of your particular legal concern. We didn’t claim to win, merely implied it by the question imposed. Now, for that commuter on a train rummaging through the business section of the daily paper, which ad do you think would garner more attention – one that focused on two otherwise nondescript business folks smiling, or a baby winning a race. And to put it in more “dollars and sense” terms, which do you think would require a heavier schedule in order to be effective?

But creativity does not have to be used for the messaging alone. When a Pennsylvania law firm expressed concern about its New Jersey satellite office and the lack of awareness it was generating, we developed no new ads and did nothing online. Instead, we developed a South Jersey Art Show contest in which elementary and middle school children throughout the area were asked to submit artwork highlighting “What’s Great about South Jersey.” Financial awards were given to the winning entries at an elaborate, though inexpensive ceremony attended by all finalists, their parents and their teachers. Did the firm gain any awareness? You bet they did.  But even more important, they picked up four new clients that very night. What’s more, checks were also awarded to the schools of the winning entries, creating new opportunities for even more post-event publicity. Give the firm credit. They could have gone down the tried and true path, but instead chose an approach that allowed them to stand out from everyone else.

Another example --  a family law client of ours was looking to break out from the pack – usually a costly proposition. He was the stepfather to an autistic child and along the way, had picked up quite a few insights into the legal issues involved in raising such a child. Putting two and two together, he established a niche as a family law practitioner who focused on those couples who had a child with special needs. Is that a sub-segment of a small universe? Absolutely. Can he be the dominant player in that sub-segment without breaking the bank? Absolutely, as well.

One more.  When a Personal Injury client of ours wanted to run a television campaign, we refrained from developing one of those everyday, cheesy commercials that claimed, “We only get paid when you do.”  Instead, we actually mocked such ads in our spot, highlighting the fact that working a personal injury case is a difficult, time consuming endeavor, most often handled by bright, hard-working attorneys who understand that getting hurt is truly “serious business.”

The point is that in each of these cases, the law firm involved was brave enough to shy away from the “tried and true.” The result was not just greater business generation, but lower marketing expenses. What they had lacked in financial resources, they had made up for in creativity and … (Is there another word for ‘guts?”)

--> So take heart, all of you who are not ranked #1 or listed on the first page of Google. There is opportunity for you yet. But really, only if you’re brave enough to reach for it.

The Case Against Online Marketing

This article is prompted by an inquiry we received recently from a family law practitioner who felt that he had extracted all he could from the smorgasbord of online marketing tools and was seeking alternative, “out-of-the-box” means for growing his practice.

Now, before I get on my high horse and start to come across as sanctimonious, cynical or perhaps both, let me first acknowledge the obvious: Online marketing has and should have an absolutely prominent place in the marketing arsenal of most law firms. The reasons are fairly obvious:

• A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) initiative is invaluable in its potential ability to generate firm awareness by garnering high rankings on the search engines
• Pay-Per-Click advertising is a flexible, cost-efficient means for generating quick leads
• Email and drip marketing campaigns can be very effective in helping firms to develop relationships with potential clients
• Social media can do wonders in terms of building credibility and enhancing reputations. 

But it is the wise law firm that understands online’s limitations vis-a-vis more traditional media vehicles. And believe it or not, one of the most critical of these relates to cost. (More on that later).

First, for all of their noted benefits, each of the online marketing tools comes with some inherent drawbacks:

• SEO is a process that takes a significant amount of time to yield tangible results. Despite what the SEO providers may claim, two firms offering the same services in the same market cannot both be ranked number 1 across all major search terms.
• Pay-Per-Click advertising tends to generate clicks – but often of a dubious, less-than-qualified sort, with even the metrics sometimes being questionable
• Depending on the nature of the market, the content of the message, the quality of the list etc. etc., emails can often represent an inordinate waste of money.
• Social media, implemented correctly, mandates the constant generation of reams of content – relevant or not, potentially across a multitude of platforms. It takes a great deal of time to institute a strong social media program across several vehicles.

And it is exactly that “time” conundrum that really sits at the heart of the issues with online marketing – whether one integrates with a marketing automation system or not. In fact, I would suggest that the time commitment required makes most of online marketing more, not less costly that many other traditional types of marketing approaches.

As stated, to do it “right,” requires oodles of effort – an allocation of human resources that the firm may or may not have. To generate the constant content that is the bread and butter of online marketing is inevitably going to cost the firm in time (when developed internally) or in money (when outsourced.)

This is of course no different than any other medium. An advertising campaign in trade publications is going to require an investment, yes – but once its created, its created. Until the next campaign, there really is not there much work to do. And the costs involved in hiring an agency to develop that campaign may actually be less than those incurred in hiring one to implement any of a variety of social media initiatives. Ditto for PR, where volume of content still plays second fiddle to the quality of the pitch, interview or article.

The grass isn’t always greener and the most cost effective media aren’t necessarily those you might think at first blush. Add to that the fact that everyone is doing online, and a case can be made that looking at alternatives to online marketing is actually looking at investing in a less competitive environment and one that, by looking elsewhere, is perhaps actually looking forward.

So what will I tell the attorney who inquired about alternatives to online marketing? I will tell him to take a step back, analyze his results to date and to conduct some kind of time and money cost/benefit analysis. I would not tell him to abandon his online efforts (he still needs a web site and being ranked first isn’t necessarily a bad thing). But if his dollar and time bank accounts allow… to definitely take a step back to the past… er, I mean the future. Surprisingly, it may actually make his online program work that much harder!

Sick of Online Marketing? Here’s Five Non-Traditional Ways to Market Your Law Firm

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If one didn’t know better, one would think that the only way to market a law practice would be through online means. We are all bombarded with daily messages warning us that if we do not work on optimizing our site, we will fall off Google’s radar. We will not enjoy a stellar reputation as a thought leader if we are not tweeting, Facebooking, Snapchatting or Linkedining. We’re “nobody” if we do not have a blog. And we may be missing valuable clicks if we haven’t implemented a major pay-per-click advertising campaign.

But, for all you folks out there who would like to try something different, here are five non-traditional, non-on-line ways to increase awareness of you and your firm:

Start a Foundation

That’s right! Start a foundation and market it by associating it with the firm name (e.g., Jones & Smith Law, creates The Jones & Smith Foundation). Find a worthy cause (preferably one related to your practice area), invite the movers and shakers in your world to sit on your board of directors and begin networking with the people that matter all the while generating awareness of your practice (not to mention, doing good for your community.) This can be especially effective for firms with a business-to-business focus.

Create Special Events & Cause Marketing Initiatives

Like the above idea, but don’t see yourself putting in the requisite time and effort to make it worthwhile? That’s okay. Identify a cause related to your practice and/or to your marketing needs and develop a themed event or series of events around that cause. For example, we have implemented several art show/contests on behalf of PI firms that asked high school students to submit art work that persuaded their peers to not text while driving. The event generated great deals of exposure (and quite a number of clients!) for a number of personal injury practices.

Run Sponsorship Ads

Don’t have the financial resources to launch a large advertising campaign? No problem. Think strategically and support organizations with ads in or on their yearbooks, program guides, event signage, etc. You may not hit a large amount of people, but chances are, you will be hitting the right people. We’ve seen law firms do just this with great success.

Develop “Expert” Brochures

Okay, I get it. The world has changed. Everything you want, you can get on the internet now – including information on legal matters. Yet, the printed word still has some prestige. Create an “expert brochure” on a topic of vital importance  (no “selling” now) and promote its availability by disseminating press releases and sending to relevant organizations (e.g., an education law practice forwards a handful of brochures entitled “How to Know if Your Child’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is Really Working” sent to special needs organizations).  By the way, you can also offer it online as well – but that’s a song for a different day. 

Write a Book or eBook

Did you like writing those “expert” brochures we noted above? Then make yourself really happy by drafting an ebook on a topic you know well. (Hopefully, it has something to do with the law.) Publish it yourself. It can be relatively inexpensive. Then get it in the hands of everyone that you know. You can even give it away for free if that makes sense. What better way for people to get to know you, your work and how brilliant you really are? It’s got the “Wow” factor because people tend to think of writing a book as being a big deal. Just remember, the idea here is to build your practice, not necessarily sell books (though that can be nice as well).

Does implementing any or all of these initiatives suggest you shouldn’t link your site to other relevant sites, post online, or interact electronically with others? Of course not.  But in a world where everyone seems to be doing pretty much what everyone else is, a little creativity can go a long ways in making you and your law firm stand out from the crowd.  In fact, take that creativity a little further and don’t do anything suggested in this post. That’s right. Instead, take the time to think a little about your practice and generate new ideas for marketing in a manner that perhaps no one else in your industry has.

Making that New Year’s Marketing Resolution

New year’s resolutions are a funny thing. No matter whether they are for an individual or for a law firm, adhering to them is difficult. For many, the beginning of January means the annual commitment to aggressively promote their services. Unfortunately, just as with promising to lose weight, to exercise or to remember that elusive wedding anniversary, actually doing so is less than certain. Sometimes, life just gets in the way.

So, for all those law firms that promise to “do something” each year and then find every excuse “not to,” this post is for you – 5 tips for jump starting your business development initiative:

Recognize the Commitment
Just as the experts recommend a disciplined approach to building a financial portfolio, so too must you take a structured, long-term approach to marketing. In order to be successful, marketing should be considered an investment – not an expense. There are no silver bullets, and while obtaining a tangible return on investment is always the goal, most integrated marketing efforts should be measured on their ability to build the practice – versus their efficacy in generating quick, but perhaps, less than ideal leads.

If You’re Going to Be In – Be in Strong
With a few exceptions, most marketing initiatives take some time to realize tangible results. There are reasons for this, but the main one is that it usually takes several exposures to a message before it resonates with its intended target.

To illustrate this, consider the ad you might see for a particular service. Given that the ad is a piece of communication for which money has been exchanged, you are rightfully skeptical as to the veracity of the exuberant claims in the copy. Visiting that organization’s web site makes you a bit more comfortable. Then, your cousin Joe recommends that service as well. So now, you’ve been exposed o the organization in several different ways – all of them positive. Your perceptions of the risks in purchasing this service are mitigated and you are more likely to pursue a relationship.

Similarly, think of another situation in which you see the same message repeatedly even within the same medium. The first time you may not even notice it. The second time, it might generate some interest. By the third, fourth or fifth time, that message has been drilled into you. Hopefully, you are ready to “buy.” But even if you are not, you will be aware of that organization and its services when that time does come.

My point in mentioning all this is to help you understand why marketing takes both time and financial resources. In most cases, being in just a little, will not take you all that far. This is as true for the dollars required for a television campaign as they are for the amount of content needed for search optimization as it is for the time that is necessary to effectively engage in face-to-face networking. It’s a little like marriage. Yes, you can get out of it if necessary. But, in order to maximize your chances for success, you have to fully commit.

Name Your Quarterback
Regardless of how you will be promoting your practice, someone is going to have to take the day-to-day responsibility for making sure the best of intentions become reality. That can be a dedicated marketing person, a chair of a marketing committee, a senior partner, etc. It can even be an consultant or marketing firm – provided that someone in-house is designated as the go-to person for that outside resource. When it comes to marketing, there can be many, many opinions (“Do you like the color green?”), but ultimately a process has to be in place for making decisions. Otherwise, plans will lay unimplemented years and special opportunities of an immediate nature will be missed.

Vet Your Marketing “Partners”
Every marketing consultant or firm will tell you that they will be your “partner.” This is great – providing what they tell you is true. Try to get a feel for what they really do. Are they an IT vendor that understands the bells of whistles of web site development, but knows little about how to attract prospects? Are they wed to a single type of marketing vehicle and thus see every solution from a very limited perspective? Ask to see their work. Ask to speak to their clients. And don’t be shy about looking at several competing firms. Personally, I have found that those firms that do the best vetting also tend to be the best clients. You’re about to engage in what will hopefully be a long-lasting relationship. Make sure you are dancing with the right partner.

Get Top-To-Bottom Buy-In At any organization, it’s important that every stakeholder be on the same page. There’s nothing more discouraging than when one or more individuals want to aggressively go after new business, while another individual or group are reticent to put the time or money into the effort. As in any team sport, unity is critical for achieving positive results.

Of course, there’s one other thing that goes almost without saying --- though Nike did a pretty good job of saying it: “Just Do It.” Yes, promoting your practice can be hard, requires time and financial resources, and can be downright scary. But isn’t that what most new year’s resolutions are all about?

Marrying IT with the Legal Marketing Function

Businesses of all kinds have historically had a difficult time reconciling the respective roles of those in the marketing and in the accounting/financial departments. It has always been understood that marketing should "pay out." Yet those who performed that function had difficulty articulating how each element of their program contributed (for better or worse) to the company's bottom line. 

Now however, that “fuzziness” of respective roles has carried over into the IT department as well. Marketers of all kinds (and legal marketers in particular) might well ask where marketing begins and ends. More often than not, in today’s information driven society, it begins and ends at the desk of the firm’s technical guru. 

For proof, one need look no further than the importance CRM software plays in the business development process. If attorneys (particularly at larger firms) had to procure, understand, implement, train and then utilize such applications on their own, it is doubtful this technological advance would be as widespread as it is today. Same holds true for the marketing guys who may well understand how to develop a message, place an ad, disseminate a press release or even create a pay-per-click campaign, but who at the same time, would have difficulty recognizing the compatibility of one legal application with another.

So much of legal marketing today revolves around online activities. Yet it is the IT folks who understand the benefits (and limitations) of the various social media outlets, the changing algorithms involved in search engine optimization, the capabilities of online dissemination services, and the potential of the firm’s web site to convey everything the firm wishes to convey.

The law firm that places too great a distinction between marketing and information technologies runs the very real risk of inefficiency, but even more important, is almost certain to miss out on opportunity. A much wiser approach is to promote the full integration of the IT folks into the marketing decision making process.

By doing so, law firms are almost certain to discover ways in which to efficiently stand out from competitors through both substance and style. And even in the information age, “standing out” is still what marketing is all about. 

Marrying IT with the Legal Marketing Function

Businesses of all kinds have historically had a difficult time reconciling the respective roles of those in the marketing and in the accounting/financial departments. It has always been understood that marketing should “pay out,” yet those who performed that function had difficulty articulating how each element of their program contributed (for better or for worse) to the company’s bottom line.

Now however, that “fuzziness” of respective roles has carried over into the IT department as well. Marketers of all kinds (and legal marketers in particular) might well ask where marketing begins and ends.   More often than not, in today’s information driven society, it begins and ends at the desk of the firm’s technical guru. 

For proof, one need look no further than the importance CRM software plays in the business development process.  If attorneys (particularly at larger firms) had to procure, understand, implement, train and then utilize such applications on their own, it is doubtful this technological advance would be as widespread as it is today. Same holds true for the marketing guys who may well understand how to develop a message, place an ad, disseminate a press release or even create a pay-per-click campaign, but who at the same time, would have difficulty recognizing the compatibility of one legal application with another.

So much of legal marketing today revolves around online activities. Yet it is the IT folks who understand the benefits (and limitations) of the various social media outlets, the changing algorithms involved in search engine optimization, the capabilities of online dissemination services, and the potential of the firm’s web site to convey everything the firm wishes to convey.

The law firm that places too great a distinction between marketing and information technologies runs the very real risk of inefficiency, but even more important, is almost certain to miss out on opportunity.  A much wiser approach is to promote the full integration of the IT folks into the marketing decision making process.

By doing so, law firms are almost certain to discover ways in which to efficiently stand out from competitors through both substance and style. And even in the information age, “standing out” is still what marketing is all about.

Don’t agree? Or maybe you do. Either way, I’d like to hear from you. Very interested to hear how your firm has or hasn’t integrated the IT and marketing functions.

Legal Marketing: How to Engage Your Prospect

Years ago, legal marketers only had to concern themselves with communicating the firm message to as many qualified prospects as they could, as many times as they could.

My, how times have changed.

Today, simply reaching prospects is no longer enough. Law firms now need to interact with them. By interaction, we mean any activity that begins to establish a relationship between the firm and the potential new client, thereby reducing the individual’s perceived risk. There are any of a number of ways in which to promote such interaction, among them:

• Personal Networking
• Posting on Social Media Sites
• Participating in Online Groups
• Offering Free White Papers
• Webinars
• Offering E-Newsletter Subscriptions
• Requesting Survey Input
• Offering Survey Results
• Seminars

Each of these activities has inherent advantages and drawbacks depending on the type of practice area and the unique situation of the firm itself. For example, personal networking is probably the most effective, but requires a great deal of time and limits the number of prospects one can reach.  Similarly, a seminar provides a terrific means for conveying expertise and gaining the trust of potential clients, but usually costs considerably more than its webinar counterpart. In implementing the latter, most of the logistical issues of time, place and location are moot. Yet webinars lack the opportunity for face-to-face interaction that a seminar provides.

Determining which method or methods for promoting interactivity is best for a firm is not difficult.  Much more challenging is making the actual commitment towards some type of such initiative – particularly when each carries with it inherent costs of time and/or dollars. Nevertheless, today, where we live in such a cynical age, it is important that legal marketers do all they can to minimize that perceived risk and thereby lower the hurdles of turning prospect into a real, live, paying clients.

Thoughts on Marketing the Sole Practitioner and Small Law Firms

I thought I’d post some thoughts today on legal marketing for smaller law firms and the sole practitioner. Obviously, in terms of marketing, the biggest difference between smaller firms and their larger brethren is the depth of resources they can apply to the marketing function. It is foolish to think that such practices will be able to “out shout” their competitors. Hence, they must think smarter and utilize whatever resources they do have more wisely.

Part of thinking smarter means ignoring the temptation to be just another fish in a large pond and instead turning into the proverbial large fish in a smaller pond. And that “pond” can be the geographical area the practice targets, the type of individuals or businesses the practice seeks to reach, the sub-segment or niche in which it seeks to make its mark.

Some examples…

By geo-optimizing its SEO and pay-per-click efforts, a small family law firm can be ranked high up on the online directories within that area closest to its office. There’s no need to reach out across a large metropolis to seek business among people who will never see the listing and even if they did, would probably not venture miles away from where they live.

A small personal injury practice might recognize that it would be foolish to take on the “big boys” with a television campaign. But it could carve out a niche among new and young drivers by a) launching a social media effort towards high school and college students, b) running ads on highly targeted cable networks (e.g., MTV, VH1, Spike) or c) implementing an outreach program or special event for high schools/colleges in which students are rewarded for safe driving or participating in a contest on driving tips, etc.

By thinking vertically, a B2B law practice focusing on a specific industry can become the player in a given market. Every individual and every business inevitably considers itself to be unique. By highlighting its experience in transactions for, say, the retail industry, the small firm can become the “go to” practice. It doesn’t really matter if other firms might be just as capable. The mere fact that experience in transactional matters for retailers is conveyed through the firm web site, social media pages, collateral materials can convince potential prospects that you understand their language. Want to get even more specific. That same firm might consider becoming the perceived guru on matters pertaining to retail restaurants.

Solo practitioners and smaller practices should not grouse about the unlevel playing field on which they compete. Nor, in frustration, should they ignore the marketing function altogether. Instead, they should recognize that they can be highly successful by leveraging their resources against tighter definitions of geography, target prospects and/or area of focus.