Thought leader

By Andrew Powell, director of marketing, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP

Do you want to know what my pet hate is, what really makes me squirm inside? It’s simple: trying to explain to the uninitiated, what I do for a living.
Of course, I can give them my job title, but that’s often met with a bemused look. ‘I didn’t realise law firms did marketing,’ is often the first response.

I suppose that to the average person in the street, it would seem that way. You don’t see any ninety-eight-sheet posters at the train station or law-firm logos emblazoned on football teams’ shirts, and there are few television commercials.
No – marketing in law firms is more advanced and demanding.

For many of us, the lines between marketing and sales have always been blurred. We’ve always coached partners on new business acquisition and we’ve focused on relationship management while, at the same time, handling external-communications programmes, events and publications.

We see, and can influence, the bigger business picture. We can flex our marcoms skills in our sales activity and vice versa.
However, I do think there are two areas where we can learn much more from our colleagues outside the professional services: brand management and marketing planning.

I see little evidence that law firms have defined, let alone promoted, their brand. Few can state what they are really about and what they stand for. Instead, they revert to describing features or attributes, ‘leading international law firm’ being the most prevalent. So, it will come as little surprise that law firms have failed to manage their brands consistently and coherently. And even less that clients often find it difficult to distinguish between law firms ‘x’ and ‘y’. It’s because neither claims to ‘wash whiter’, as it were.

This may be why we’re so poor at marketing planning. In the absence of a well-defined brand positioning, we don’t have a route map or benchmark. We measure less and react more.

Let’s not beat ourselves up about this. We’ve had to develop some pretty nimble footwork to deal with lawyers who are reluctant salespeople. We’ve sometimes had to craft marketing campaigns out of an irrational desire to be a published author on some obscure legal point. Some of us simply haven’t had the luxury of time to develop a twelve-month marketing plan, let alone implement it.

But I suspect all of that is about to change. As law firms increasingly talk about brand and marketing directors like myself get to discuss values, brand positioning and brand management, I suspect we’ll be able to implement more robust planning processes.

We’re already beginning to see the impact of sales professionals and account managers on law-firm marketing and business development. And as brand issues grow in importance, we will see brand managers being recruited and influencing the way we do business.

All of which makes for a powerful combination: the inventiveness, adaptability and interpersonal skills of law-firm marketers, with the solid disciplines of planning and brand management. Which leaves me with one dilemma: how do I explain that to the uninitiated?