Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Strategies 08.08 V10.N07 The Journal of Legal Marketing PUBLISHED BY Five Keys to BuildingYour Firm’s Marketing Committee by Eric D. Altholz Lawyers, like most people, want to see results and want to feel that the efforts they personally expend, not to mention the costs they incur, are worthwhile. ost law firms that engage in serious business development activities have a marketing committee of some kind. A strong and active committee – made up of the right people working in an efficient structure – will help the larger marketing efforts of the firm gain traction and ultimately yield results. There is no magic size or structure for a marketing committee, and what’s right for your firm depends on your “marketing culture” and objective factors like size, budget and market position. But here are five things to keep in mind as you build your committee or consider how to improve the effectiveness of a current committee. M [1] Right-Size the Group A marketing committee should be large enough to allow for reasonable delegation of duties and division of labor, but small enough to be nimble and relatively easy to assemble or poll for quick decisions. Our firm’s marketing committee was originally made up of our managing partner, director of administration and marketing coordinator. That approach worked for a while, but it soon became clear that we needed to overhaul our Web site, ads and collateral materials. We also needed to expand our marketing efforts overall in response to developments in our local market and in anticipation of a planned strategic expansion into a new geographic market. More hands were needed on deck. Shortly after I joined the committee, we significantly expanded the budget and expectations for the firm’s marketing activities.We hired a director of marketing, and we engaged a legal marketing consulting firm to help us with our strategy and Web site redesign.With the added horsepower of our consultants and a senior-level marketing professional on staff, we elevated our overall marketing program both in terms of quality and capacity. Clearly, we were moving forward. More recently, we realized that the committee needed broader representation from our stakeholders. So we added two more partners to our committee: one from our relatively new Boston office and the other from a successful, specialty practice group, which brought our total lawyer count to four. For now, we think the committee is the right size for our 100-lawyer firm. Any smaller, and we’d feel even more overwhelmed by the task and not as connected to the firm; any larger, and the group would become unwieldy. [2] Get the Right People (No Experience Necessary) As organizational hierarchies go, law firms in general are relatively flat, and that’s the case for many reasons. For one, partners – even those in large firms – view themselves as owners, and there’s only so much authority they’re willing to cede to management. In addition, lawyers are notoriously difficult to manage: They simply don’t take direction well. Even the positional authority of the managing partner may not be sufficient to get lawyers to buy into the firm’s marketing efforts.That’s why it’s critical to include opinion leaders and/or “connectors” on your marketing committee. Also, the lawyers you want on your committee are probably the ones that get out of their offices during the day, know people in the community and remember the names of the summer associates. They are also the kind of lawyers who help provide the organizational glue that keeps the firm together from a social standpoint.They are likely to be very effective carriers of the marketing message, because of the status they enjoy in the social strata of the firm and because they have natural inclinations toward marketing activities. So if you are building your committee or looking for someone to fill a vacancy, start Reprinted from Strategies:The Journal of Legal Marketing. Permission granted by Legal Marketing Association, Glenview, Ill. by making a list of the lawyers who go out to lunch a few times a week, as opposed to those who eat at their desks every day. If you have to, choose energy and spirit over experience and gravitas. [3] Measure and Report Progress Lawyers are skeptical by nature. In most cases, they want proof of a proposition before they are willing to accept it, particularly if efforts must be sustained over time to bear fruit. But there’s no use trying to persuade a lawyer that marketing is a process that doesn’t really end, and that it might take months–if not years–for the firm’s marketing or business development efforts to prove valuable. After all, what’s the point of having a process if it doesn’t produce a tangible outcome? Lawyers, like most people, want to see results and want to feel that the efforts they personally expend, not to mention the costs they incur, are worthwhile. That’s why a marketing committee should report both the process – where successful marketing events could be given simi lar attention to significant court room victories or closings – and the outcomes (namely, significant new clients). Specific and measurable activities such as Web site hits or the growing number of attendees at an annual seminar can help build the case that a firm’s marketing efforts are a worthwhile expenditure. [4] Don’t Get Stuck in the Weeds Lawyers who serve on marketing committees typically want to be involved in the development and implementation of marketing strategies (i.e., the fun part). Yet, ironically, the lawyers are the ones most likely to get the committee bogged down in dealing with routine tasks. (Just ask any lawyer to review four lines of ad copy.) One way to reduce many of these tedious marketing tasks, from golf tournament sponsorship requests to routine ads, is to use a consent agenda. Our committee now uses templates for routine ads, press releases and smaller sponsorships to reduce time spent at committee meetings reviewing these kinds of items. [5] Delegate Responsibility The inherent value of committee work comes through the exchange of ideas and integration of input from committee members, but that doesn’t mean that every aspect of each project must be dealt with as a group. A wellstructured committee will delegate projects to individual committee members or a task force. This can make for more expeditious progress on certain projects and assure that committee members stay fully engaged on an individual level. A project identified for task force work (such as the development of a crisis communications plan) may even create an opportunity to get non-committee members involved, which in turn will get more people within the firm directly engaged in the marketing effort. Business development efforts at any law firm are likely to be an evolving process sustained over time, and a dynamic marketing committee is clearly a key component of that process. With patience, persistence and the right chemistry, your marketing committee can realize its full potential and deliver results. ■ Eric D. Altholz is a partner in the Portland, Maine, office of Verrill Dana, LLP. He practices in the firm’s employee benefits and executive compensation department and is a member of the firm’s marketing committee. Reprinted from Strategies:The Journal of Legal Marketing. Permission granted by Legal Marketing Association. Glenview, Ill..