BY ELLEN TOPLIN
Special to The National Law Journal
Successful Law firm marketing involves a mixture of strategies, tactics and tools. No one of these should be expected to carry the entire burden of positioning the firm front and center in the marketplace to attract a steady stream of new and lucrative clients.
Indirect marketing tools perform in one way, direct tools in another. In general, the more indirect a strategy, the more long?term the results, and the longer it will take to achieve them. Indirect marketing serves to create an intangible aura around the name of a firm, giving it an image, an association, a reputation that tends to stick. It's what the attorney thinks of when he or she thinks of American Telephone & Telegraph. IBM or Xerox.
Examples of indirect marketing include authoring a bylined article in the trade press and being quoted in an influential national publication on an issue with regard to which the attorney can be readily identified as an expert.
These tools, of course, rely upon a potential client or referral source's noticing and remembering the attorney's name and calling him or her when a need arises, sometimes years in the future.
Direct marketing, on the other hand. In likely to achieve results ? in terms of the generation of now business rather quickly. It In, In a word, direct; that in, It will be highly focused, targeted, aimed at a particular audience and tailored to meet that group's very specific needs. Unless the direct marketing "net" falls short on the first throw, the attorney can't help but get a good catch.
Topical Seminar
An example of direct marketing that is quite obvious in its eagerness to attract "buyers," is advertising. Few law firms do it, however; there In still the stigma of Its being seen as tasteless, unethical or unprofessional. A better example would be a topical seminar sponsored by a firm wanting to entrench or expand business with current clients or to attract new clients, either for a particular service or from a particular region.
Sponsoring a seminar is not as "iffy" as publicity in the press, because it is not a general audience vehicle. Instead, Its entire raison d'etre is to gather together a very specific group of people, entertain them with information about a subject they care about and garner their business through seminar follow?up tactics – including face?to?face conversations In the social segment at the seminar's conclusion.
When structuring and planning an actual seminar, the firm must target the audience. This will mean looking at the overall marketing plan to find a practice area that is realistic and appropriate to promote.
Perhaps the firm will want to first entrench its existing clients by giving them a reason to be glad they do business with the firm. Or perhaps the firm feels it is important to cross?sell certain services to clients who only use
A seminar can help create a feeling of start?up loyalty to a law firm ? simply because those who attend it gain some familiarity with members of that firm.
Attractive and well?designed conference kits should be provided for all the attendees, along with the requisite nametags. It the seminar is held in a variety of places, the needed signage must be created to guide attendees from workshop to workshop.
Finally, a firm should design seminar feedback questionnaires to find out what worked well, what didn't and why.
The press should be invited to the seminar. Their coverage lends credibility and even glamour to the event, and news of the firm and its activities will reach many more people.
Post-seminar releases should be sent to the appropriate trade, business and general?press publications. And the firm should ?arrange to have some of the seminar speeches published in key trade publications and the firm's attorneys interviewed for articles on the subjects they presented at the seminar.
Follow-up in a crucial phase of seminar sponsorship. Without it, attendees have no real way to connect with the firm and establish a business relationship. The seminar can thus become a fruitless exercise in dispensing free information.
Aside from mailing post?seminar releases and publishing seminar speeches, it's wise to develop and mail checklists to attendees. These will help them apply the information gathered during the conference to their actual business or organizational concerns. And the lists should also help them in identifying potential problem areas, in which enlisting the assistance of the sponsoring firm might be a wise option,
The firm's mailing list of attendees should be used regularly. The firm should begin a program of follow-up mailings, sending the attendees reprints of relevant articles written by members of the firm or in which they were interviewed and quoted.
The idea is to position the firm in the minds of existing and potential clients as an organization with the resources and the expertise to meet their needs effectively. The seminar will create a feeling of loyalty to the firm simply because attendees will have gained some familiarity with the firm members. Almost everyone prefers doing business with people he or she already known. Then it's up to the firm to enlarge the acquaintance into one of trust and even business friendship.