The Barustors Report
SHOE-STRING MARKETING FOR LAW FIRMS
LMA Bay Area's March program explored effective, low budget, marketing strategies and tactics available to law firms. Participants included:
MODERATOR:
Kate Fitzgerald kate@deanemarketing.com, Principal, Deane Marketing + Communications. Kate is the immediate past-president of LMA Bay Area and a board member of the 2002 LMA National. She is also a contributing legal columnist to the Daily Journal.
PANELISTS:
Frank Lopez flopez@hansonbridgett.com, Marketing Director, Hanson Bridgett. Frank worked as a reporter, events producer and media director before entering the legal field.
David A. Hicks dhicks@ienvision.com, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, iEnvision Technology, Inc. He holds a J.D. from the University of San Diego.
Jennifer Manton jmanton@thelenreid.com, Director of Marketing and Communications for Thelen Reid & Priest LLP. Jennifer has nearly 10 years of professional services marketing experience. She founded and served as the first President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the LMA, and is currently President-elect of the New York Chapter.
The program explored four key areas related to legal marketing. The information below comes from participants' comments, materials they provided to the audience, subsequent interviews and program information provided by LMA Bay Area.
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS (MARCOM)
Establish and maintain active relationships with legal reporters at industry and business publications. Prepare media tools for reporters that will enable them to identify key attorneys for specific legal questions. Have these attorneys accessible after hours and on weekends.
Fitzgerald: Good, consistent, targeted press is one of the most-effective third-party endorsements a law firm can have. Leveraging internal marketing talent, and press-savvy attorneys, can create low-cost, high-impact media communications.
Lopez: Try leveraging your advertising purchases with other related activities such as editorial contributions or public appearances. A single ad in an isolated publication is a poor expenditure. However, if an article from one of your attorneys will appear in a publication, advertising in that issue increases your firm's visibility.
Manton: Invite target publications in-house for a roundtable with a group of lawyers on a topical subject. Also create an "expert" source list by practice area and industry and distribute to various publications as a resource when they need a last minute quote or background information.
TECHNOLOGY & CRM
The effective use of technology is not necessarily expensive. In fact, many firms already have sufficient albeit, under-utilized -- technological resources.
Hicks: Use extranets to create "project rooms" online meeting rooms for ad hoc projects. These virtual settings are a cutting-edge use of technology, and can be disbanded at no cost, at the conclusion of the project.
Manton: Extranets have intrinsic marketing value because they convey efficiency and effectiveness to clients. Intranets also have tremendous value as they can serve as an internal information platform for practice groups, client teams or industry initiatives. Thelen Reid's IT department is helping us in Marketing to build portals for our client teams. The portal will house project information, timelines, filings, document management, and leverage the services to which our library already subscribes.
Lopez: Work closely with the folks in IT. Justifying software purchases, web upgrades and related expenditures is easier if you have the support of the IT leadership. Moreover, some purchases you seek may come within IT's budget.
CROSS-DEPARTMENT COLLABORATION
Knowledge Management, Recruiting and IT departments often intersect with marketing. Look for ways to maximize intersecting budgets by meeting similar goals. Think about economies of scale. Save money by reusing existing materials for different groups of audiences.
Fitzgerald: Create and offer substantive client roundtables and workshops, free to clients. Save additional money by hosting the program in your office or at one of your clients' offices.
Collaborative programs, such as regularly scheduled practice group meetings are the best venues for other practice group leaders to discuss their services and how they work with other firm practice groups.
Hicks: Use portals to "push" information to client teams. If the firm subscribes to news services, make those services available to all who want the information. Use the firm's library, and ally with the firm's librarian.
Lopez: Reflect successes to attorneys with whom you collaborate. If an attorney enjoys the accolades from a launched web site or seminar, his or her enthusiasm for the next project will aid in justifying costs.
Utilize in-house rainmaking talent for attorney training. Every firm has attorneys who are good at business development. Set up lunches, breakfast meetings, and/or workshops to have these attorneys convey their techniques to associates and partners.
Manton: Formalize client teams that include all lawyers across the firm and across departments who work on a particular client. Thelen Reid has adopted the Bill Flannery method of building service teams for key clients. The client team approach allows us to predict and forecast client needs, understand client expectations, coordinate utilization of professional resources across multiple offices, and spot and address client satisfaction issues in a timely manner. This service approach also allows for deeper penetration into our clients and limits clients' exposure to possible competitors.
BUDGET ALLOCATION
In order to win buy-in for your budget and budgetary needs, think in terms of dollars and ROI. Remember that your CFO is your firm's accountant. Their goal is to maximize shareholder value. Your proposals must do the same.
Manton: Each year collaborate with firm management and develop goals and objections for the Marketing Department at your firm. Based on priority, budget for the various projects or tasks related to achieving the goal, such as developing a media and advertisement campaign to increase name recognition in a particular industry. At the end of the year, you'll be able to justify the firm's investment by tracking the results of the various initiatives.
Lopez: It is usually easier to convince a single person of the value of an expenditure than it is to convince an entire group. One partner may have a fondness for hosting events, another may favor press outreach, another may be predisposed toward technology. Each partner has latitude for a certain level of expenditure without partnership approval, and leverage for larger expenditures. Ask these attorneys to present these expenditures.
Insert yourself into the planning process as early as possible. Do not wait for an invitation: ask to join practice group meetings, section planning sessions and the like. Once there, listen carefully for marketing opportunities and identify potential expenditures. Get your expenses into the annual budget when possible.
Finally, do not set yourself up for failure by telling your attorneys you can complete a project without adequate funding. It may seem the easy way out when you make such a claim, but when you fail to deliver, lack of funding will not suffice as an excuse.
| Bay Area legal marketing consultant, John Cosmides, is principal of The Cosmides Group and director of Barustors, a State Bar-certified referral service for business and corporate clients. John can be reached at john@barustors.com or at 415-957-1330. | |