The Five Keys to Cost-effectively Marketing Your Legal Practice or Small Law Firm

Courtesy of Guest Blogger Bruce Segall

Organizations of all kinds struggle with the right level of marketing to support their growth without "breaking the bank." This challenge is especially true for small professional services firms focused on serving current clients. Some smaller firms engage high-priced consultants or commit to search engine optimization programs, while many others do without any formal marketing at all. The online world is now bursting with advice for lawyers and law firms on marketing, but much is geared to large, well-resourced firms. The following are five fundamental steps geared to those with truly scarce resources, particularly firms whose clients are institutions, rather than consumers.

1. Have a clear, compelling statement about your service niche:
   As competition for legal services grows, many lawyers report that the flow of referrals has slowed down vs. 10-20 years ago. In today's challenging environment, you should help your clients and professional contacts help you, specifically by clearly communicating who you serve and what makes you different. Many solo practitioners or small firms have a diverse practice, and want to stay "open" to a broad range of business. While this seems practical, your friends can help you more if you give them something focused and memorable, rather than general, to work with. Commonly called an "elevator speech," this is used in person or on the phone, but can be easily adapted for emails. I advise you to keep it short, with punchy words and sentences. You should refer to an emerging challenge or issue in your practice area rather something generic like "I am a civil litigator." Focus on the quantifiable results e.g. examples of a recent favorable decision.
2. Use your TIME and resources wisely:
   Time is the most valuable, scarce resource in marketing. Unless you are a born "rainmaker," you'll need a system to fit business development into your already busy schedule. You may have the best plan, but unless you have a disciplined way to execute, your efforts will break down. Here are two tips:
   • Divide relationship-building into tasks to be completed in a shorter time frame, such as week, month, or even quarter
   • Set aside a time during the week when you know that clients do not call, and make an appointment with yourself for business development
3. Develop and Maintain an Accurate Contact List:
   Relationships are everything in legal marketing. You can manage some of your closest relationships individually, with great care and customization. You and the other attorneys can't possibly manage your broader contacts as carefully. For these, you'll need a firm contact list, an essential aspect of marketing that many professional firms overlook or underemphasize. The list can be housed in many ways: stand-alone or integrated into your other systems. Regardless, the list is only as good as the effort you take to build and maintain it accurately. While many attorneys are good at maintaining their Outlook contacts, keeping a high-quality firm list requires significantly more effort.
4. Have a Regular Process for Cultivating Your Relationships:
   Clients, past clients and other professional contacts account for most of your new business. To maximize the chance for referrals, you need to stay top-of-mind with these individuals and cultivate relationships. A face-to-face meeting is the best way to stay top-of-mind, and a phone call is also an alternative in today's busy world. So I suggest a simple tracking sheet whereby you target and record reaching out to ten people every week, so that five respond to you and you have at least 1-2 in-person meetings. I further suggest targeting people who worked with you as a client previously, but have moved on to another company. These "client alumni" are more likely than other professional contacts to hire you or at least provide meaningful referrals. LinkedIn is a great way to reconnect with client alumni.
5. Stay Visible:
   Existing contacts who provide referrals will probably not fill your new business pipeline entirely. Professionals need to stay visible through speaking engagements, articles, blog posts, guest lectures at law schools, and professional associations. Not only do these activities keep you in front of current clients; they enlarge your circle of relationships. You can find ways to stay visible without investing an inordinate amount of time. Instead of committing to your own blog, you can now use LinkedIn Publisher to write as often and as much as you want. Or simply take three minutes to "share an update" with your LinkedIn network once a month, and people will start to say that they "see" you on LinkedIn. With all the focus on social media these days, some may be tempted to forget that most lawyers get new clients by developing and nurturing relationships.

Most lawyers will be successful in 2014 and beyond by keeping these five fundamental approaches at the forefront of their thinking and action.

Bruce Segall is President of Marketing Sense for Business LLC., which provides outsourced marketing director services and LinkedIn training for professional services firms. He graduated from Yale College and Stanford Business School. He has worked with dozens of lawyers to improve their marketing and LinkedIn presence. For more information about Marketing Sense, Bruce can be reached at bruce.segall@gmail.com; 914-980-4703; or visit www.maketingsense2.com

This post was modified slightly from Bruce's post that appeared on blog.nexfirm.com in September 2012.

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