All law firms want more “good” clients. But to get them – and keep them – you need an effective marketing strategy.
A marketing strategy is a business's plan for reaching these prospective clients and turning them into clients. Effective marketing strategies start with capturing your firm’s ‘Why’ and then establishing your firm’s USP, target audience, core messaging, marketing objectives and more, explains Sarah Laflin of the marketing agency Consortium. (18 November 2024)
(Note: AI is having a huge impact on marketing. It provides insights into what works, it saves huge amounts of time when doing marketing tasks, and it makes new marketing tactics possible for firms with minimal marketing budgets. This is covered in a separate article, Using AI in law firm marketing.)
What is your firm’s USP?
In a market full of law firms that offer “exceptional client service”, what makes your firm stand out?
You have knowledge and expertise and provide a tailored service, but so does every other law firm – this is what the client is paying for. So why should a client choose your firm?
A brainstorming session considering the following will help you to unlock your firm’s USP (Unique Selling Point):
What do you want to be known for?
Always start by considering your firm’s mission, culture and values, to ensure that your offering is genuine. How does this align with the qualities that a potential client is looking for?
What do your clients want?
Understand the needs and challenges of the client and offer them a solution. What is important to them? What sort of interactions do they want to have with you? Is this changing and are you responding?
What is the firm good at?
Think about the strengths of the firm and be honest about the weaknesses too. How can you use your strengths to improve the customer experience and make it a standout USP? How can you address the weaknesses? Does the firm have an area of niche expertise?
Consider your competitors
What are their USPs? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How does your firm compare? How can you position yourself as different to them?
"Clients choose based on trust, but they'll only stay or convert if you deliver on your promises. Ensure your client engagement and touch points reflect your marketing values."
Ben Trott, managing director, Marketing Lawyers
Standing out from the crowd
Here are some ideas to help you differentiate your firm and make it more attractive:
- Being tech savvy: Adopting and using the latest technology to improve and enhance the customer experience, as well as streamlining processes internally.
- Quick response times: Law is often a distress purchase, so a rapid response can be a good USP – provided you can then deliver.
- Community: A strong community relationship or corporate social responsibility (CSR) focus is becoming increasingly valuable to clients. While it is not a unique strategy, what you decide to focus on can make you unique. It is important to align this with your values – and those of your clients.
- A multigenerational approach: Understanding and accommodating the varying expectations and communication styles of the different generations can be a real point of difference, offering significant value to clients.
Once you have established your USP, you need to find a way to sum it up in a core message.
This is the key message you want your target audience to know about your firm and it is often the first thing people see or hear. The core message is a key part of the firm’s branding and will run through everything you do. It should clearly and concisely convey the firm’s purpose, values, and USP.
It is vital to communicate this message internally, as well as externally, so your whole team is aligned behind what you have set out to achieve.
Who are you targeting?
You need a clear understanding of your target market:
- What does a ‘good’ client look like for the firm?
- What are their pain points?
- What are their purchasing habits?
- What are their demographics? Age, sex, income, location?
- What is their professional status? Job title, industry, income?
- What media do they consume? What are their preferred communication channels? Where will you reach them?
- What are their interests and values?
When you understand these elements, you can craft a strategy to reach the right people, in the right place, at the right time.
"Knowing your ideal client’s pain points and where they turn for solutions is key. It allows you to connect with the right people in the right places, positioning your firm as their go-to choice when they need support."
Helen Cox, marketing consultant, Helen Cox Marketing
Using client personas
Marketers often think in terms of a ‘client persona’. If, like many firms, 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients, look at those key clients and create an imaginary person, or people, who represent the whole group.
For example, John is 40 and runs a hotel as a family business. Or Tara is a high-net-worth individual who enjoys high-end travel. When planning your marketing, check that it will work for these individuals. This simple check provides a useful focus for all your marketing activities.
Who are your competitors?
When analysing your competitors, consider:
- Who are your competitors (both direct and indirect)?
- Who is their target market?
- How do they try to differentiate themselves from other law firms?
- Identify their 4P’s: Product, price, place and promotion.
- What are their strengths and weaknesses?
Look at their websites and social media (eg personal profiles on LinkedIn). What is the firm doing for ESG/CSR? What awards have they won? What events are they sponsoring? What are their reviews like?
As with the overall strategy, be methodical. Set up a spreadsheet or table to compile and analyse your research. Keep it up to date and revisit it every 6-12 months.
SWOT analysis
A SWOT analysis gives you a picture of the firm’s position in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and helps to identify the actions needed.
In addition to the questions asked above, consider:
- What do other people say we do well?
- What resources do we have available?
- What is our greatest achievement?
- Can our testimonials be improved?
- In what areas do we need more training?
- What customer complaints have we had about our service?
- Is our pricing strategy working?
- What could we do today that isn’t being done?
- How is our market changing? How can we take advantage of those changes?
- What obstacles do we face?
- Could any of our weaknesses prevent our team from meeting our goals?
- Who and/or what might cause us problems in the future? How?
- What can we do to capitalise on the strengths and opportunities?
- What can we do to limit the risk from the threats?
A thorough SWOT analysis will help to:
- Understand what your firm does well and what areas need improvement.
- Anticipate and manage risks.
- Identify both opportunities and threats.
- Set realistic objectives.
"When conducting a SWOT, use hard numbers, client feedback and ask team members at all levels, then weave what you learn into your strategy.”
Rachel Tombs, founder and owner, Orion Legal Marketing
SMART marketing objectives
Armed with an understanding of the firm and its mission, values, business goals and USP, as well as your target market and your competitors, you can set your marketing objectives. These help achieve your firms’ goals, create brand awareness, and build client trust and loyalty.
To help your team to achieve your objectives, make them SMART:
- Specific - what exactly is the outcome you are looking for? What does success look like?
- Measurable - how will you know if you’ve met this objective? What data will be measured, and how often you will take these measurements?
- Actionable - are these objectives realistic? Consider the budget, skills and resources available.
- Relevant - does achieving this objective ‘move the dial’, putting the firm in a stronger place than before? Does it align with what the firm is trying to achieve in the short, medium and long-term?
- Time-bound - what is the deadline to achieve this? Will some short-term goals help? Will you set time-based benchmarks?
Examples of SMART marketing objectives are:
- Increase the client conversion rate by 20 percent through targeted email campaigns in the next quarter.
- Increase organic search traffic by 30 percent by the end of the year.
- Obtain three testimonials for a particular team in the next quarter.
- Generate 100 enquiries through a targeted social media marketing campaign in the next six months.
- Expand the email subscriber list by 25 percent by the end of this quarter.
- Improve Google ranking to be in the top three search results for relevant keywords within the next six months by utilising SEO strategies.
Tactics
The next step is deciding on the tactics: the activities that will achieve the objectives. What you decide to do will depend on:
- The information gathered about your target audience. What channels should you use to reach them? What type of content will resonate the most?
- The budget and resource available.
- Data and experience from previous campaigns. What worked well or badly in past campaigns? What could you do to improve it? How will you measure success?
- Your team’s skillset. Do you need support from an agency to execute the campaigns?
"Data is the new ‘gold’ when it comes to marketing. It enables you to optimise every strategy and tactic, based on what works best.”
Rich Dibbins, founder, Staxton Digital
Measuring marketing success
Measure what you do and make full use of the data available to monitor the success of the campaigns.
Track leads and instructions from channels (eg social media), referrers (eg an estate agent), and sources (eg magazine advertising). Analyse the cost-per-acquisition (‘CPA’) of the new client. Some channels may be free, in return for introductions and recommendations for the introducer. Others may turn out to provide a poor return-on-investment (‘ROI’).
Consider the estimated lifetime value of a client. Some clients, particularly business clients, will continue to use the firm. So while the CPA may be high, the high lifetime value may make the CPA well worth it.
Focus on chasing the most profitable business. Typically, these are large matters, or high margins, or repeat-order business.
Identify the least profitable business. Typically, these clients who are hard to please and take up more time than normal. Pricing experts sometimes label these clients “penny pinchers”. Tweak your marketing, to avoid attracting and accepting this type of client — or raise your prices to make the work worthwhile.
The easiest and most cost-effective sale is to an existing client, as opposed to finding a new client. So, ask yourself what additional services you could sell. The classic example is a change to someone’s will when they get married or divorced, or simply updating a will periodically to keep up with changes in the law.
Nurture your key clients, rather than sitting back and waiting for new instructions. Share valuable content and keep them up to date with items they will be interested in, to show that you are proactively thinking about them. AI makes this task much easier.
Marketing strategy top ten
- Have a strong USP, linked to your values and authentic to your firm.
- Know your target market.
- Keep an eye on your competitors.
- Honestly assess your strengths and weaknesses, and identify opportunities and threats.
- Document your strategy and communicate it to your employees.
- Ensure your objectives are SMART.
- Use tactics that effectively guide the buyer through each stage of the ‘customer journey’.
- Produce a clear plan of action.
- Monitor – measure – evaluate – adjust if necessary.
- Include your current clients in your strategy.
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