Today, legal marketing professionals are playing an increasingly strategic role for law firms. These professionals bring to the table both the business acumen and skillset necessary to add unique substantive value in helping to drive the business of the firm. This underscores a very important value-add to the firm: providing support to attorneys in the critical area of business growth at a time when budget and resources are stretched thin.

According to a 2016 joint survey[1] from the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) and Bloomberg Law®, more than 80 percent of law firm attorneys cite a lack of time as their primary challenge in developing new business for their firms. An additional 30 percent cite lack of staff as a factor, while another 21 percent point to budget constraints. This comes at a time when law firm focus and emphasis on business development and marketing continues to increase because of internal and competitive pressures. The survey states that 67 percent of attorneys agree their law firms are increasing their emphasis/focus on business development and marketing efforts.

For legal marketing, this move into the role of strategic business partner marks the next evolution of the profession. For more than four decades, legal marketers have played an important role for law firms in such areas as communications, market research, ad campaigns, and event management. Through the years, that role has continually refined with the emergence of such vital tools as mobile and social technologies, and the growing role of Big Data, all making information more readily available and accessible.

As attorneys face the pressure of generating new business, that role evolves even more, with marketing professionals undertaking an increasingly diverse set of roles and responsibilities. These roles touch practice and process improvement, business planning, attorney coaching, and client service and relationship management.

A 2017 joint study[2] by LMA and Bloomberg Law furthers this point, demonstrating a mindset shift from the practice of law to the business of law, with marketing and business development activities being largely aligned with driving revenue for the firm. In fact, the data shows more than 82 percent of leading marketing/business development professionals direct initiatives related to revenue growth.

Today, the strategic legal marketer is one that is considered to be an advocate for the voice of the client, a collaborative partner with all law firm business functions to deliver client value, and extremely engaged with business planning and client service/relationship management initiatives in these fundamental ways.

Invested in the Client

Law firms increasingly place primary emphasis on developing broader and deeper relationships with current clients and growing organically in the practice areas and geographies where they are already strong. Legal marketers are committed to influencing and leading change to better serve clients.  

When it comes to differentiation, professionals surveyed by LMA and Bloomberg Law[3] point to investment in client experience and development of greater knowledge of, and expertise in, their clients’ businesses as the most effective tactics. These two items reflect a shift to a client-first mindset and mirror the growing customer experience trend at the forefront of many consumer products and B2B businesses.

Also reflective of a growing client-first perspective, marketing/business development professionals are clearly focusing business intelligence activities on better understanding their clients by tracking news (87 percent), tracking company information (76 percent), and tracking industry data/trends (71 percent) to prepare for client meetings and deliver news/current awareness updates to attorneys.

Refining Core Skills

As legal marketing professionals look to further position themselves at the center of the firm’s evolution, the need to consistently refine their set of skills is vital. These skills must be founded in both the business and practice of law.

The Legal Marketing Association (LMA) — the “authority for legal marketing” with 4,000 members — defined the core set of skills for legal marketers in a foundational resource called the Body of Knowledge (BoK). The BoK clearly defines the essential and accepted domains, competencies, and associated skill sets within the legal marketing profession at every level.

This resource helps legal marketers hone their skills, assists legal marketing managers to develop themselves and their teams, and provides a universal benchmark against which legal marketers can be assessed. We invited leaders in each of the six BoK core competencies to share their insights on key trends and developments in each area.

The Business of Law

Those marketing and business development professionals who are appropriately proficient in the business of law understand the legal profession and are able to evaluate firm financial and operational performance, build strategies to leverage market opportunities, and implement practices that maximize performance.

When you look at the specific competencies that define these abilities, you start to see important areas of expertise that should be familiar to anyone who aspires to lead within a law firm.

Many competing opportunities exist, which means that legal marketers must play a role in being able to choose those with the highest return and then collaborate to put them into action. The work of realizing opportunities must integrate the efforts of multiple departments. For example, a new practice area will require new promotional materials, but it will also likely involve recruiting new attorneys to fill in missing capabilities; other functions will also have an important role to play.

The “business of law” is changing rapidly because of two factors. The first is technology, which requires efforts across multiple fronts (Technology Management is one of the BoK core competencies); the second involves the evolving nature of client expectations. Leaders understand how these two forces will change a firm, and can be prepared to address and exploit them. Leaders must show the way and not respond after events have already swept by.

Increasingly, an important feature that will differentiate successful and unsuccessful firms is the capacity to bring all talents to bear, irrespective of their position in the firm and legal training. Firms must draw on the talents, perspectives, and energies of all attorneys and professional staff; the perspectives of all roles and responsibilities should inform strategies and tactics.

Client Services

In order to build revenue, firms need to not only focus on securing new business, but also on retaining current clients. According to Harvard Business School and BTI,[4] profits will increase by 25 percent or more when client retention rates are elevated by 5 percent. 

When focusing on client retention, one way for firms to differentiate is through client service. Legal marketers continue to play an important role in this function by implementing client service initiatives using the following techniques:

1.     Establish Client Service Standards Immediately – Instituting a process for client intake, therefore ensuring a smooth onboarding with the firm, can really set a positive tone for a client relationship.

2.     Understand the Clients’ Business – In addition to helping attorneys study and grasp client objectives, industry trends, news, and policies; legal marketers also recommend attorneys take time to visit the client and really ingrain themselves in the working of the company.

3.     Keep Clients Informed – Attorneys should be the source of information pertinent to a client’s business. Rather than relying on general firm emails as a means of informing clients of legal developments or upcoming events/webinars, legal marketers counsel attorneys to email content directly and/or pick up the phone to discuss. They also recommend that attorneys establish benchmarks for delivering regular status updates on legal work. Feeling uninformed can result in client frustration. Clients should never have to ask for an update.

4.     Request Feedback – Legal marketers work with attorneys to conduct post-matter reviews so they can hear directly from the client what the firm did well and what could be improved upon. Legal marketers make note of the feedback, develop a tailored action plan for the next matter, and leverage that information across firm clients. Conducting annual client assessments are another avenue for securing feedback on the firm’s overall performance, responsiveness, quality, and consistency. These in-person meetings typically yield valuable, actionable client intelligence, and are often more open and productive with legal marketers in attendance to help facilitate the conversation and provide an objective assessment.

Communications      

Effective communication includes knowing the audience; communicating in a clear, concise, and timely fashion; maintaining a good demeanor; ensuring accuracy (and moving quickly to correct any inaccuracies); and maintaining a resourceful mindset.

Consider this: A marketing liaison on a high-profile project that involves a firm’s IT department and senior partners is instantly faced with three different audiences, each with its own communications style. Some issues that need to be considered are how to effectively communicate the project timelines to these audiences; how often to provide updates; and how to receive information from one audience and distill it for another so that all understand the status of the project at any given time.

The adage is true: Your knowledge is useless unless you can effectively communicate it to an intended audience. This is why having a resourceful mindset is so important. In the scenario above, the strategic legal marketer understands basic IT lingo and then how to translate that into an update for the senior partners and a relevant selling point to convert new clients. Looking at the reverse, it’s likely that the marketer will receive very limited information from the senior partners and have to create a list of actionable next steps for the IT team and/or marketing team.

Strategic legal marketers are effective communicators who are able to receive and distribute complex information in a way that keeps stakeholders satisfied.

Technology Management

Twenty years ago, a marketer’s skills included good writing and having a mastery of design, PowerPoint, print, direct mail marketing, public relations, and event marketing. Today, a marketer additionally must have mastery of the large number of technologies available to effectively market his or her organization.

Marketing has become so technological that many organizations now have a “marketing technologist” — who is considered a bridge between IT and marketing — a technologically savvy professional with a deep understanding of data, analytics, and legal operations coupled with the creative mindset to transition raw data into actionable insights to drive marketing results. But, all marketers must have a mastery of different technologies in order to apply them appropriately.

Marketers must be good technologists for a few simple reasons:

1.     The people that we reach are online;

2.     The ability to engage online is so effective; and

3.     Technologies can amplify marketing efforts effectively.

Technologies used to market

The role of marketing departments in law firms usually spans traditional marketing — the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising — and sales pipeline management — the action of turning qualified prospects into paying customers.

Consumers can now engage with a company at an event; online through web pages, videos or mobile app; through printed materials; or via social media. Marketers understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of these media and channels — including their costs and potential returns on investment (ROI) — and understand which ones to use for a particular marketing goal. Marketers are proficient at providing a seamless experience, regardless of channel or device.

Business Development

Much like law firms themselves, legal marketing professionals are challenged constantly to prove their worth by adding value for their “internal clients.” Marketers today bring to the table well-honed business development skills and the ability to provide guidance and support to attorneys as they work to expand their books of business. Marketers leverage sharp business development skills and enable lawyers to put their best foot forward in pursuing work.

Many law firm marketers are called upon to provide “coaching” for the lawyers they support. To adopt a sports analogy in which lawyers are the players, business development, when well executed, can and should encompass not just the role of the game-day coach on the sidelines, but that of the team’s entire coaching and front office staff. In winning legal work, as in sports, securing a victory takes more than just fielding the most talented team. Rather, it requires critical behind-the-scenes planning and preparation that all falls under the rubric of business development. This includes assessing the landscape and the opponent, selecting the most effective combination of players, and educating them on the particulars of the challenge ahead. This helps them to develop a unified approach that utilizes each team member’s strengths, ensuring that they practice and condition themselves to identify and seize upon opportunities that may arise, developing contingency plans for how to respond when things don’t go as planned, and being nimble enough to react when momentum shifts. Although execution and implementation may ultimately fall on the shoulders of the players, there is no doubt that the most respected coaches are those who, time and time again, put their teams in the best possible position to win.

By taking on an active role in business development and collaborating with lawyers to map out game plans and training regimens that ultimately yield success, legal marketers are helping to advance the goals of the organization.

Marketing Management and Leadership

 A highly functioning marketing organization transforms what would otherwise be random acts of marketing into systematic efforts that help achieve a firm’s strategic objectives, thereby amplifying the value of the function.

Understandably, managing and leading a function is an advanced skillset that requires both “IQ” and “EQ.” Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, refers to a person’s intellectual abilities. Emotional Quotient, or EQ, measures a person’s ability to identify and manage emotions, both their own and those of others, which helps them create the relationships that enable collaboration and leadership.

The intellectual challenges for a marketing leader start with creating a vision for the function that articulates the difference it can make for a specific law firm. Then, the choice of organizational structure must support the vision, and reflect the culture and strategy of the firm. The next task is designing the work processes that will operationalize the structure, including identifying the marketing technologies and tools that will best support those processes. Finally, a seasoned marketing leader will be able to develop a resource plan, including a budget, to execute the vision.

Of course, people are required to bring the organization to life, making personnel management a central component of successfully leading a marketing function. Attracting, developing, and retaining high-quality talent requires emotional intelligence and leadership ability. These skills can be cultivated and strengthened over time, and the dividends of doing so are high. Instilling teamwork and building a collaborative culture within the function leads to higher productivity and seamless service to the firm. It encourages everyone to contribute and creates joint accountability for the function’s performance. Investing in training and coaching programs further elevates skillsets and helps retain valuable talent, all of which has a positive impact on morale.

An effective marketing leader is also able to adroitly manage vendors and consultants to maximize the value received. These external resources bring several key benefits to the table, including: insight into best practices; the ability to outsource subject matter expertise; competitive intelligence; pressure release on strained internal resources; and professional development and skill enhancement opportunities for the internal staff who work with them. The strategic legal marketer has a keen sense of when and where to use external vendors and consultants in order to provide much needed flexibility.

 A Role Refined

 Today, the role of marketing and business development professionals within law firms looks much different than it did just a few years ago. That role will likely evolve even further in the years ahead.

As new demands continue to place additional pressures on business development and client service, law firms can increasingly look to marketing and business development professionals to play a more strategic role in growing the business. For law firms looking to best position themselves for future success, marketing and business development professionals can and should play a valuable role, particularly when firms are mindful of providing the necessary tools, resources, and support.

[1] Legal Marketing Association & Bloomberg Law, 2016 Joint LMA-Bloomberg Law Survey Report, https://www.legalmarketing.org/bloomberg-lma-survey.

[2] Legal Marketing Association & Bloomberg Law, 2016 Joint LMA-Bloomberg Law Survey Report, https://www.legalmarketing.org/p/cm/ld/fid=2674.

[3] Id.

[4] Frederick F. Reichheld & Phil Schefter, E-Loyalty: Your Secret Weapon on the Web, Harvard Bus. Rev. (July-Aug. 2000), excerpt available at https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/the-economics-of-e-loyalty.