| |
| |
|
Marketing Resource Center |
|
|
|
How to Put Law & Order into Marketing Your Legal Practice
First in a series of three articles Regardless of your law firm's focus - criminal, civil, corporate, family, business, etc. - the greatest challenge most small to mid-size firms face is the lack of a strategic and disciplined approach to business development. Relying on referrals does not a strategy make! And waiting to get serious about marketing until that major case is wrapped up is way too late. Whether you're frustrated with past marketing efforts that have been expensive, time-consuming, and haven't paid off?or you think you can't afford to take a sophisticated, results-driven approach to business development like the big firms do, guess again. While your firm may not have its own in-house marketing expert on staff or the generous marketing budgets that the larger firms enjoy, you can systematically and affordably attract more clients than you ever thought possible. It just takes a thoughtful strategy that leverages the laws of marketing, and an ordered approach to stay on track. Laws of Marketing First and foremost, marketing is NOT about brochures, websites, advertising or cold calls. These things may or may not be tools that make sense for your firm, once you've leveraged the laws of marketing. There are two basic laws of marketing1 that must be mastered by professional service providers who want to stop wasting time and money on ineffective marketing efforts. They are: 1. Build your base (carefully craft your message) 2. Reach out to your market (build and nurture relationships) Here's a quick look at what each of these laws requires? Build Your Base. This law means spending thoughtful time defining your firm's niche, developing language that grabs your prospects' attention, articulating what makes your firm stand out from other firms offering the same services, demonstrating your value, and illustrating your firm's authority to deliver better than all other choices. Unfortunately, 90% of professional service firms ignore the law of "build your base" and rush to communicate about their firm without a carefully articulated message. This leaves your target audience unconvinced or, at best, confused about how your firm can serve them better than all others vying for their attention. Invest a little time in building your firm's base, and you'll be ahead of most of your competitors. Reach Out to Your Market. This law involves developing and implementing a system of strategies to build and sustain relationships with your target market and current clients. They are executed both offline and online. They are done systematically and repeatedly. They work in synergy to create an unstoppable buzz and attraction to your firm that takes on a desirable life of its own, once you've put them in place.These strategies include things like networking, direct outreach (personal or mass mail), PR, articles and speaking, keep-in-touch systems, using technology to attract, develop, and retain relationships; tapping centers of influence, developing joint ventures, launching a client relationship strategy, using a customer creation system, pursuing a relationship selling strategy, introducing a win-win fee strategy, and developing next-level strategies for current clients. Orderly Conduct This is the hard part for most law firms...making marketing happen is a function of carving out the time from precious billable hours - not an easy task! However, you can do it, especially if you take a disciplined and orderly approach to staying on track. This means you have to? Get focused. Schedule a meeting with key decision-makers in your firm to discuss making a commitment to marketing. You don't have to make any major decisions at this first meeting, except determine how much time you can commit weekly to your firm's marketing efforts. Start small (2 hours per person) and put it in your schedules. Then schedule your next marketing meeting to discuss the results of your homework, the attached Are You Ready for a TurningPointe? marketing assessment! Get organized. Use the results of the marketing assessment to stimulate discussion about where to start. At this point, if you've not done market strategy and planning before, call in an expert. It'll save you lots of time in the end, since you'll START with a strategic marketing plan that makes sense for your firm and is realistic to implement. Some basics to consider when developing your plan include: ? Keep it simple; don't take on too much at once. Spread out your deadlines. ? Identify a mix of short-term, easily implemented goals and longer-term, harder-to-implement goals. Build in some quick "wins" for an immediate return on your investment. ? Prioritize but be flexible; be willing to change dates or put things on hold when other marketing priorities make sense (which means you don't stop, you just shift). ? Identify the obstacles (people, time, money, lack of expertise, etc.) that could derail you and plan tasks for how to overcome them. ? Plan for how to make marketing a reward, not a punishment. Build in rewards for people who take time from billable hours to market. Stay on track. At a minimum, guard one hour every week for a status check on your marketing plan - even if you're a solo practitioner, that means making an appointment with yourself! The mere act of focused thinking or discussion about marketing every week will make an enormous difference in your ability to attract more clients. Once you have a smart plan in place that's realistic (see Get Organized, above), all you have to do is focus on taking one step at a time, then another, and another. Each small marketing task builds momentum and before you know it, you've implemented a major goal. The key is to keep moving?or if you stop, get restarted. It also helps to have "accountability" to an outside party, who keeps you on track through regular telephone and in-person coaching sessions. The Defense Rests So your practice has a stellar track record of client victories, you do good work that you care about, and you know your contribution makes a positive difference in the lives of your clients. What if you could reach more clients than you ever thought possible with all that you offer? Apply the laws of marketing through an ordered plan of action that keeps you on track, and you will. Case closed. References 1 Middleton, R. Laws of Marketing TeleClass. Action Plan Marketing, Inc. 2003. (c) 2004 TurningPointe Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved.
MORE RESOURCES:
Marketing - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
There's More to Marketing ROI (return on investment) Than Meets the Eye All too often people look at marketing ROI in terms of response rate: in other words, "I sent out 10,000 pieces of direct mail and only got 39 responses which is terrible." This is wrong think. 4 Steps To Increase Your Job Sign Marketing It's no secret that using a job site sign can be an effective way to market your company's services to neighborhood homeowners. But most job sign marketing isn't done as effectively as it could be. Want to Increase Your Business? First You Need to Understand where You are at! Are you having trouble understanding basic situational marekting concepts? Then this article is for you.Alex Margarit shows you a simple step by step way on how to put together a basic situational analysis. Creating Customer Value The purpose of business is to create and retain a customer.Much has been written about customer orientation, customer relationship management (CRM), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) metrics, Customer Centric organization models, customer retention, customer care?add any high sounding word with 'customer' preceding or succeeding that word and you have a new model, a new theory. Packaging Made Frozen TV Dinners Possible I was saddened to hear of the passing of one of the food industry pioneers Gerry Thomas, One of our unsung heroes credited with invented a "package" the frozen TV dinner that literally changed the way we eat. Never mind that it was considered by nutritionists as a step backwards, his invention still made a major shift in the food and food services industries. Ten Effective Ways to Capture Market 1.Evaluation of Existing Products / Therapies2. Direct Mail Strategy - Brand Identity Guru 1. Know your purpose: What do you want your direct mailer to accomplish? Do you want to be remembered? Do you want to educate prospects about benefits? Recently, Brand Identity Guru was hired to expand a clients direct mail efforts, so we created a direct mail piece to showcase our clients related capabilities. What Can Star Wars Teach You About Creating a Buzz for Your Business? Many people think marketing is some type of mystery that only a few select people know the secret too. In fact if you look at the entertainment industry you will find some of the best models to follow. Becoming The Obvious Choice In A Sea Of Competition Differentiation, niche marketing, and positioning. These and other related business buzzwords have no doubt crossed every business owner and marketing director's ears in recent years. How To Get To The Top of The Marketing Food Chain Are you tired of living off handouts from big-name marketers, earning meager affiliate commissions?If you truly want to live and breathe the rarefied air of the super-marketers, what you need is not a change in method, but a change in attitude and mindset.You need to start thinking like a top gun and create your own identity instead of feeding off the efforts of others. How to Market and Protect Your New Ideas The intellectual property transfer market is now estimated to be worth over $100 billion. If you have a new idea, a patent or an invention, you may be able to license it or sell it for millions of dollars. Marketing is More Than a Token Process "Necessity is the mother of invention!" The first time I heard this was nearly twenty years ago when I was introduced to Tony Robbins' material. I was listening to, and applying, information from his thirty day series. Slogans: Creating and Using Them In Life, Career and Business Information is coming at us from all directions nowadays. This pace requires us to demand that we receive it fast and predigested in order to inch ahead of the game. GoogSpy: Business Counter Intelligence for Everyone So, you want to know what your competitors are up to these days, or maybe you want to research a keyword campaign that will rank you at the top of the heap for whatever product or service you're selling? Meet GoogSpy, a special search engine that not only shows you what Google AdWords your competitors are buying, but it will display all of the search terms that rank them in the top 10, PLUS it even displays their top 25 competitors.What search engine does it base all of its intelligence on? Well, with a name like GOOGspy, there can only be one. Provacative Research Works If you want to double your business, then you need to get inside your client's head through proprietary research and provocative results.By conducting proprietary research, you obtain special information that prospective clients can't find elsewhere. Mailing Lists - Keeping it Simple The right direct mailing list targets people who want your product or service.The direct mail mailing list is a key factor in a successful direct mail marketing campaign and a major point to consider in small business marketing strategies where marketing ROI (Return On Investment) is a key concern. Be Prepared for Marketing For most businesses, making a sale is all important. However, despite the amount of effort and attention given to getting sales, there is often no attention given to developing and effectively implementing a systematic marketing process. How to Connect Features and Values "Buy this magazine or we'll shoot the dog," went a memorable cover for the satire magazine National Lampoon many years ago. On the cover, along with the threat, was the picture of an attractive dog with large sad eyes - and a pistol pointed at its head!Want a powerful way to make sure your message leaves an impression on the people who receive it?Talk about the consequences that will occur as a result of following or not following your advice. How To Recognize Your Niche Marketing Agenda Starting a business, whether it's retail products orservices, must establish their own "niche". It doesn't matter how great your products or services is, how great your sales letter is or your headlines, offers or what a great price you're offering. Low-Cost Marketing With Postcards Here's a simple way you can generate lots of sales leads ..
|
| home | site map | Advertising Articles |
| © 2006 |
