Q&A: Martin Cohn, chief marketing officer, Holland & Knight LLP

At international firm Holland & Knight LLP, Martin Cohn enforces his global marketing strategy with consistent communication and interaction across all levels of the firm. He spoke to Legal Marketing about the challenges of marketing a firm globally.

What are the main challenges of marketing at an international level?
I think legal marketing – and I can only really compare it to accounting marketing, within the professional services – is not as mature. When I was at Grant Thornton, I was working in a very successful, mature marketing environment. The entire legal industry isn’t there yet. Also, in the mind of the prospects, our clients, acceptance and understanding of legal marketing is not as mature as in some other industries. So, we need to be careful that we don’t over engineer or over think the marketing. We just try to promote a very clear, engaging message to our clients.

How do you ensure that message is consistent across all offices?
We are teaching our marketing professionals in every office that the brand and message which Holland & Knight communicates to its clients has to be consistent. We can’t change our name or our colours; we can’t change the look or the feel. We really want someone – no matter which office they walk in to, or which documentation they receive – to see something that looks the same no matter where it came from. Whether it’s from Chicago or Miami, or an office abroad, we want it to have a synonymous look and feel. We’ve got the marketing people to be branding champions, so that they can drive this. But we’re also making sure the lawyers and staff understand the importance of consistency – so there isn’t really a desire to move away from that message. It’s a very positive environment and it isn’t a hard sell. Everyone understands that this is the look of Holland & Knight, this is how we describe ourselves, and this is the way we position the firm. People gravitate towards it and adhere to it. And this is how the world receives our marketing.

Going deeper than pure branding awareness, how do you educate your staff?
A lot of it is about getting people face to face. I’ve been here for around 120 days and I’ve been in all but three of our offices. I sit down with people as groups – partner or office – and hold individual meetings. We also have national and international meetings.

I recently bought 40 marketing people to Miami for two days. We had presentations and a lot of interactive sessions – people sharing ideas and best practice. We also invited lawyers and other people in the firm to come in and speak. We said, ‘Here’s the challenge – how do we do this? Is there a better way to do this?’. People walked away charged up. I think one of the best things you can do when you have large team, is to let them spend time with each other – actually meet people who they may have been talking to on the phone for months.

How much of an impact do the meetings have on your global strategy?
A great deal: our meetings are very accountable. We list action items and, once the meeting is over, we revisit all of these. In certain cases we prioritise them and come up with assignments. We identify processes that need to be addressed, then select members of the team as a task force, who will pull them apart and think of ways to make them better.

What is the most important aspect of marketing at this level?
Consistent communication. You say something, you say it again and you don’t change the way you say it. You reinforce it. You make it clear and precise and you give people the opportunity to ask questions. Our lawyers are not marketing people, so I want to help them, to position them and support them. And when you do this globally, everyone understands it and it applies to everyone. It’s amazing how well it works when we, as marketers, communicate in this way.