In April the Legal Marketing Association held their annual conference in Austin Texas. According to surveys taken at this even, the majority of firms in attendance report they are ramping up their new business development efforts. Which means they are going to have to increase their effectiveness in marketing their particular skills, articulating the unique skill set and advantages their firms have to offer over other law firms. Like any other company that wants to attract new business and maintain their current client base, they must use marketing to help to achieve their goals.
Accounting Today, Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk:
“..The majority of firms (57 percent) are seeing budget growth for marketing and business development keep pace with the overall firm budget. Only 12 percent saw a decrease, while 31 percent reported their marketing and business development budget stayed the same.
Roles and Responsibilities
Over the past three years firms have seen a significant growth in social media and other kinds of new marketing activities. Marketing and business development personnel have increased their efforts in several areas:
• Practice and process improvements
• Practice and business planning
• Firm strategic planning
• Attorney coaching/training
• Content marketing
• Client service and client relationship management
It is only in the area of social media, however, that attorneys themselves are making major contributions.
Evolving Relationships with Attorneys
The relationship between attorneys and marketing departments is changing, with an overall improvement reported by 44 percent of business development personnel. They list more one-on-one communication, stronger personal relationships, increased trust and credibility, and a better understanding of mutual needs as factors that contribute to this enhancement of their working relationships.
It’s worth noting that only 21 percent of attorneys report the same thing. Fifty-three percent of the attorneys surveyed find working with marketing and business development professionals challenging at times. That’s unfortunate, because they rely on these key people for a variety of critical tasks:
• Gathering company information
• Responding to RFPs
• Ranking and award submissions
• Content marketing
Attorneys feel most positive about efforts to plan and execute events, support for client pitches, building brand awareness and producing quality client communications. They feel least positive, according to the survey results, about other important goals:
• Integrating business development into attorney workflow
• Effectively generating new business
• Strategically positioning the firm
• Generating media coverage
This indicates a real communication gap as well as challenges for marketers in helping firms realize their potential.
Technology
The array of technological resources available to help firms market and manage their practices has never been wider. Many firms have at their disposal tools that include:
• Business Intelligence
• Client relationship management software
• Litigation tools
• Content generation or management services
• Proposal management software
• Pricing management software
Just because it’s available, though, doesn’t mean it’s being used at its highest level. Respondents indicated that business intelligence, CRM programs and many other tools at their firms could be utilized to a far greater degree than they currently are.
The Big Picture
Overall, we can see that increased investment in marketing and business development is accompanying an expanded role for these activities, with greater focus on strategic approaches to yield targeted results. Relationships continue to evolve, with great opportunity to create further value from marketing and business development efforts. Technology remains a key area where improvements in understanding and utilization can offer significant benefit to those firms that are willing to invest time to adopt the appropriate tools.”