The lack of time and expertise are two of the main reasons many law firms fail to have consistent marketing systems in place. Because of this, marketing tends to be ad-hoc, hardly ever measured and, for many, then becomes a waste of time.
Typical mistakes that lawyers make include:
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Trying to market to everyone instead of specific niches;
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Not using enough channels for their marketing;
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Not mapping out how they intend to communicate to prospects and clients;
- Not investing enough time and money on regular marketing activities;
- Focusing too much on introducing and selling new products instead of equally thinking about building positions of authority and thought leadership;
- Not having a plan in place to for consistent marketing activity.
One consequence of the recession on law firm marketing strategies has been a reduction in the money spent on advertising and big-ticket or firm-sponsored events, which for many simply didn’t generate enough new revenue to justify continuing.
However, the time and money saved from not investing on the above has not always been re-allocated to other marketing activities in a consistent manner, making it even more difficult for law firms to figure out how best to generate new leads.
Building a position of authority within a target niche takes time, and can only happen if there is conistent marketing taking place across multiple channels. The key goal here is to build trusted relationships with prospects and get them contacting you for your legal services as a result of the information you have shared with them over time.
During recessions, clients are attracted to lawyers who, in their minds, have shown they have the deepest expertise to solve their problems they face and help them achieve their desired goal.
This expertise and trust must be proven over timeusing compelling case studies, articles, blog posts and seminars / webinars. Brochures, sales literature and adverts simply don’t work for many law firms now.
So, what should lawyers do to be more consistent in their marketing?
Here are a few tips…
- Map out your ideal prospect life cycle, and what value you intend to share with over time as they find out more about you. This effectively lead to the creation of your ideal sales funnel;
- Think about using various channels to market which you can test on a regular basis – including offline, online and social media;
- Commit yourself to spending a regular amount of time and money on marketing (i.e. pointing prospects to information you have made available that they are actively looking for), making sure resources are directed to activities that generate most leads;
- Focus equally on building a position of authority (i.e. brand building), generating leads, thought leadership and introducing new services or alternative access to services (e.g. alternative payment methods);
- Focus on specific niches so that you can have more specific and targeted communications to a target market, hence increasing the effectiveness of your investments.
Having a consistent communications and content delivery plan, and making sure you use all marketing channels possible to drive people to your ‘information hub’ on a regular basis is absoultely vital if you want to be noticed.
Getting noticed is getting harder, especially with all the changes in the legal services landscape, and touching base with prospects on a regular basis is one of the most effective ways of surviving the recession.
So, make sure you commit yourself to investing regularly on offline and online marketing activity, over at least 3 – 6 months if you want to build a position of authority within your target niche(s).
