Choosing the right path

Marketing programmes that have not been planned effectively can quickly lose direction. A clear destination or target must be defined at the outset. A masterclass on the development of law firm, practice or industry group, and individual marketing plans. By Janet Ellen Raasch.

The Lewis & Carroll law firm has excellent lawyers and does great work. Like many other law firms, it has long operated on the principle that this is enough. If you have quality people and if you do good work, the firm believes, those in need of your services will beat a path to your door.

Lately, however, this approach hasn’t been working too well. The firm’s growth has been flat, while its competitors have grown and captured a larger share of the most interesting and profitable legal work.

The legal marketplace has become much more competitive, especially since the internet erased the physical boundaries that once kept law firms operating close to home, and as many larger, more aggressive firms have opened regional and international offices.

Savvy firms know that those in need of legal services will no longer chase them. The competitive firm must instead beat a well-thought-out path to the door of clients, potential clients and referral sources – to let them know what they do. This path is the marketing plan.

In case you hadn’t guessed, the Lewis & Carroll law firm is fictional, but its business-development dilemma is all too real. It is being used as an example in this article, of how a law firm, practice or industry group, or individual lawyer can create a marketing plan that will yield positive results.

Before you beat a path to anywhere, however, you must have a destination. In ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’ the real Lewis Carroll puts wise words into the mouth of the Cheshire Cat: “If you don’t know where you are going, any path will get you there.”

That is exactly the problem that all too many modern law firms are facing. By not having a marketing destination in mind, business- development efforts can take random paths, which lead in all directions and sometimes even at cross purposes to each other. This pointless pursuit consumes time and money and gets a law firm no closer to the ultimate destination of more interesting, profitable work.

Law firm marketing plans
A good law firm marketing plan must focus on a specific goal. It is a highly structured process to deliver important information about this goal (or market position) to a targeted audience, using specific tools and actions. After all, no one can hire you if they do not know that you exist, what you do and who you do it for.

Over the years, many law firms have met the challenge of increased competition by offering ‘more’ and becoming full-service firms.

Paradoxically, success in legal marketing is usually achieved by focusing on less. Firms should work towards a single destination – a practice area – where they can be ‘the best’ in the field. It is much easier to attract clients to your firm with a number-one ranking in one speciality, than a 25th ranking in 25 commodity areas.

Only the largest law firms have enough critical mass to be ‘the best’ in a wide range of speciality areas. For the rest, this goal can be accomplished by limiting the number of services you offer (and market), or by limiting the categories of clients to whom you market your services – or some logical combination of the two.

Lewis & Carroll, for example, has always had a strong reputation for its real-estate law practice. It could fine tune its destination by focusing marketing efforts here ‘Lewis & Carroll will be the top of mind real-estate law firm.’ This does not mean that it must abandon its other practice areas. It simply means that it will focus its marketing resources on one speciality for now. A top-ranking practice area tends to feed work to all of a firm’s other practice areas.

However, many other firms could also develop and market strong real-estate practices. Lewis & Carroll, therefore, could further narrow its focus by concentrating on a particular geographic area or industry segment ‘Lewis & Carroll will be the top of mind real-estate law firm for mid-size companies with operations in the state of Colorado’, for example. This is a well-defined destination that differentiates Lewis & Carroll from many of its competitors . It can now create a finite list of decision makers at mid-size companies in Colorado. This list could be further broken down into public companies, private companies, non-profits or governmental departments.

Alternatively, rather than specialising by service, a firm could decide to specialise by market. For example, providing the full range of legal services for realtors.

Top of mind
Once a law firm has established its market, its goal is to become top of mind for potential clients. This will not happen overnight, so your goals must be realistic. In fact, it takes an average of a dozen contacts before someone ‘knows’ you well enough to put you on their shortlist.Ironically, many lawyers give up after four contacts have failed to produce new business. This leaves the field wide open for those who persevere.

What is a realistic goal? ‘By the end of year one, each decision maker at a targeted company will be familiar with the name Lewis & Carroll. By the end of year two, each will know that Lewis & Carroll has strengths in solving real-estate problems for mid-size companies with operations in Colorado.’ After three to five years of consistent efforts, new matters should be coming through the door at a regular pace.

You need effective tools and actions to convey your message – as the expert in a practice area – to your defined market. Your firm logo and tagline should reflect your unique goal and should appear on all print and electronic materials. You should also make good use of advertising, brochures, newsletters, annual reports, websites, blogs, podcasts, webinars and firm-hosted seminars. These should not be purely ‘all about the firm’. They should include case studies in a ‘problem/solution/outcome’ format to demonstrate how the firm has successfully worked with members of the target market. These case studies serve as evidence of your claim of excellence in a particular area.

Once your target market has been defined, find out where individuals get their information (print and online sources) and which professional or industry organisations they belong to. If you don’t know, ask them. It is a way to break the ice and they will appreciate your interest. Write for and advertise in these publications. Become an active member of the organisations – with the goal of becoming a board member. Offer to speak to the group or write a regular feature for its newsletter. Sponsor relevant events. You will not be accepted as a valued legal resource overnight, but it will happen.

Practice or industry-group marketing plans
The most effective legal marketing takes place at the practice or industry group level, where it is possible to focus closely on a goal, a target market and specific tools and actions. The same approach can work for a small, specialist firm.

At Lewis & Carroll, for example, there could be groups focusing on the tax, litigation, environmental and contractual aspects of real-estate law.

Another approach would be to focus on an industry group or geographic area: real-estate law for the transportation industry, or the hundreds of new businesses starting up in the vast open spaces surrounding Denver International Airport (DIA).

It is entirely possible for a practice group, industry group or small law firm to become known as the ‘go to’ firm within one of these narrowly defined areas, as they are easier for the group to ‘get its arms around’.

As with law firm plans, the next step here is to develop a list of target companies and individuals, an arsenal of tools and programme of action. The DIA commercial real-estate group at Lewis & Carroll, for example, could have a website devoted to this part of the city and the legal aspects of its business issues. The firm could post a newsletter on the site and send it, via print, e-mail or RSS feed, to all targeted decision-makers. A concise legal update on breaking news could be written and sent out electronically the day it happens. Regular communication of this kind will establish your group as an expert resource in the minds of your target market.

In their marketing plan, members of the DIA commercial real-estate group could come up with an action plan that includes a role for each member – depending on their strengths. For example, if there are five members of the group and five chambers of commerce within this region, each member could commit to joining a chamber. They could play an active role there through leadership at the board level, writing for the chamber newsletter or speaking once a year on changes to real-estate law. Maybe the target decision-maker list for this group includes 50 individuals at 50 companies. Each member of the group could commit to cultivating a relationship with ten of these people: asking for a tour of their facilities (off the clock, of course); bringing them as your guest to a golf tournament or a firm event or taking them to a no-sales pitch lunch at least once a year.

To be truly effective, use of these tools and activities must be charted and acknowledged at each group meeting. After two years, your practice group, industry group or small law firm should be top-of-mind with these clients, potential clients and referral sources.

Individual lawyer marketing plans
A destination, target contact list, contact tools and an action plan form the core of an individual lawyer’s marketing plan, too. In the case of an individual lawyer, the target contact list may also include your peers inside the firm – colleagues who will refer their own clients and contacts to you when they have a specialised need.

In an individual marketing plan, the destination must be even more narrowly defined. Each individual lawyer, whether with a law firm or operating solo, should spend some time coming up with ‘the product that is me’ and taking it to market. If you are within a firm, your product should fit logically within the overall marketing plan – or you should look elsewhere for a firm that is a better fit.

At Lewis & Carroll, this could be: ‘I will be the lawyer that clients, potential clients, referral sources – and my colleagues at the firm – think of first when they need someone to take a real-estate zoning issue to trial.’ Once you have decided what your individual destination will be, devote all of your efforts to achieving it. You should know everyone within the ‘zoning world’ – company decision makers as well as municipal administrators. You should know the editors of the local business papers so that they will contact you for quotes on this subject. You could also join the chamber of commerce and demonstrate your expertise in this niche to other lawyers practicing in the area. You should use all of the tools and take the actions outlined earlier in this article, with an even more focused approach.

It is imperative that law firms, practice and industry groups and individual lawyers that are creating marketing plans come up with a tightly focused destination. Once they know where they are going, they can build a direct path paved with a targeted contact list, communications tools and relationship-building actions. Then, a well thought-out marketing plan should, ultimately, take them there. n

Janet Ellen Raasch is a writer and ghostwriter who works closely with lawyers and legal consultants. She can be contacted on: jeraasch@msn.com.