The most effective ways to invest in business development

During harder economic times, many law firms have had to find cost-effective ways to gain new business, using a depleted marketing budget. Although some practice areas experience more activity during a downturn, most firms have to adapt to it to survive and grow. The experts who were interviewed for this article recommend allocating 5-7% of the firm’s total revenue to marketing. But where should that spend go?

Law firms need constantly to analyse where new marketing opportunities lie, but with constrained budgets they may need to use low-cost methods to sustain existing clients and gain new ones. This raises questions relating to whether they should spend on advertising, PR agencies, social media, attending events, email marketing, mobile marketing, business events to network, or on organising events themselves.

The key thing to think about is which channels and marketing messages are most suitable to the target audience, and to consider the aims of the campaign. As marketing strategist Rod Sloane advises: ‘If they can - and lawyers don’t think this way - they should think about their own clients’ markets.’

So if a firm is marketing to technology companies, and those companies organise events but the firm does not, Sloane suggests, the target client might consider the lawyer and their firm odd. Therefore, he advises law firms and their lawyers to put themselves in their clients’ shoes. Much also depends on the size of the law firm that wants to promote itself. Larger commercial firms will have larger marketing budgets and are able to invest in a wider range of marketing tools. Regardless of budget and firm size, it makes sense for a legal service marketing professional to develop and manage marketing. For lawyers to do it would be foolhardy as this would take them away from their core area of work - servicing clients and accumulating billable hours. After all, marketing is not the main concern of lawyers.

Be smarter

Elliot Moss, director of business development at Mishcon de Reya, says that most law firms ‘do some very unsophisticated marketing’, and ‘think that it’s enough for them just to put their brand name against something’. In his view, law firms need to set themselves apart from their competitors to encourage potential and existing clients to shop with them. This requires analysis of what the firm’s brand stands for. ‘We are famous for divorce work, but the reality is that most of our income comes from non-family and non-private client work - such as from litigation, corporate, employment and real estate business,’ he adds.

This required his firm to do some ‘smart marketing’ by using PR to develop simple messages. He says that advertising plays an important role in this strategy too, and so he has developed a long-term strategic relationship with the Financial Times. For example, Mishcon de Reya regularly advertises in the FT’s Deals and Dealmakers section. Elliot says this relationship confers credibility on his firm’s brand, and he stresses that ‘positioning’ is critical. This helps to persuade people that Mishcon de Reya ‘is a law firm for business; and everything we do, we measure’, he adds.

Cost reduction

Sloane points out that law firm marketing budgets are falling. Clare Rodway, managing director of Kysen PR, adds that the state of the economy has ‘expedited the take-up of online marketing’ by smaller law firms and so ‘the reduction in marketing costs is a no-brainer at this end of the market’. She adds that larger law firms will most likely do more in-house marketing, rather then hire expensive consultants when they are looking to rationalise marketing costs.

Larger law firms will also closely scrutinise the marketing for which they are budgeting. They will mostly be looking at short-term gains rather than strategy, as they seek a quicker return on investment. Rodway says this means that the focus will be more on business development than on longer-term brand-building.

Both Rodway and Moss believe that lower-cost marketing need not be ineffective. ‘This is about intelligent use of the pound, and I am sure we achieve a far more influential share of [this space] than our competitors because we are spending it smartly,’ says Moss. Rodway, meanwhile, warns of the danger of just looking cheap: ‘For example, a low-cost but cleverly thought-out online or social media campaign can do a lot to shrug off a fusty image that is often associated with law firms.’ Firms can, she adds, also save money with it.

So law firms should consider developing social media marketing strategies for networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn - but only if their target audience is using them. Otherwise, there is no point.

Events and innovation

Neil Cameron, director of Neil Cameron Consulting, also highlights the role that innovation can play. He points out that larger commercial firms are using social media extensively - and they are doing more than that. Internally, they have developed mobile applications to communicate with clients, which are available via Apple’s App Store. Mobile applications can be used to provide basic advice to demonstrate expertise, information about who to contact and practice areas, and other details about the firm.

Sloane says traditional events such as workshops, conferences and seminars are an effective way to ensure that senior partners or managers get in front of existing or potential clients. He suggests that it is also a good idea for them to speak at such events. However, he advises, it is important to avoid speaking in ‘legalese’. ‘By putting on workshops and seminars you can create some noise and post news and opinions about issues on social media sites,’ Sloane says. It is also possible to continue the conversation online after the event, by creating a special interest group in a social network like LinkedIn.

Use email marketing

The feedback gained from involvement with social media and other online networking can then be used to fine-tune the firm’s marketing strategy, and the content can be used in other forms of communication such as email newsletters. ‘Email marketing is a very cost-effective way to keep in touch with your clients and contacts on a frequent basis, and cost savings can be made compared with hard-copy direct-mail campaigns in areas like design and print, stationery, envelopes, postage, labels, and in administrative time in terms of stuffing envelopes,’ says Gazette blogger Sue Bramall, director of Berners Marketing.

For example, Bramall says, a firm that wants to ‘launch a high-quality monthly email newsletter to say, 1,000 contacts, should budget for at least £1,200 to cover the software, template design, set-up and training costs if they wish to manage the campaigns themselves’. The savings equate to 12p per email compared with a minimum of 36p for postage. She believes the costs associated with email marketing will fall over time, but this should not be a law firm’s only consideration.

As ever, though, good content is crucial, so there needs to be some thought about what the email newsletter is going to contain. Depending on the firm’s or a particular practice’s target audience, it could include some updates about changes in the law that affect a company in a particular industry, or an individual with an interest in a particular area of law. It can also be used to communicate the introduction of new legal services and associated products, or internally for educational and motivational reasons. The important thing is to have a clear message, some goals and measurable objectives.

Internal PR

Likewise, when it comes to media relations it is not just a case of who you know, but what you know and how you put it across. So there is little point in sending press releases en masse and then hoping for the best. Results are best achieved by considering: what publications clients and business partners read; the market sector or legal issues that clients and editors are interested in; what the story is likely to be; and how you get your brand messages and thought-leadership across in a subtle rather than overtly promotional manner. In essence, it is important to think like a journalist - and that need not cost the earth.

When it comes to this activity, the goals are to be asked to contribute an article to a particular publication, make partners and senior lawyers in particular practice areas available to be interviewed by analysts or the media, or to be quoted. By doing this on a regular basis, it is possible to present key individuals within the law firm as experts within a specific field. As with Mishcon’s campaign, it can get across a particular brand message.

Furthermore, online articles that mention the firm can be used in email and social media campaigns to encourage two-way conversations between the firm, clients and partners. PR agencies maintain that they add value because they already have relationships with editors, analysts and journalists. This can help to speed up the process, and they can help law firms create an appropriate PR strategy - but having a relationship with someone is only the start of the exercise. To hire a well-established PR agency on a regular retainer can cost £2,000 a month for two days’ work, though larger firms might spend £8,000-£10,000.

Handling such work in-house can be cost-effective by comparison, but this requires having individuals that are media-savvy, and know how to write and communicate with the media. It also requires some determination, as not every editor is easy to reach, so follow-up calls and emails are essential. Good ideas can include working with social and charitable groups. This costs time more than money, and it is a mistake to see it as an immediate business development exercise. ‘I think the expectation today is that businesses need to give something back, particularly if you work in a niche area of law, or within a well-defined community. It’s a key way of showing that you are part of a community by engaging in a meaningful way,’ Rodway says.

Yet volunteering must involve something that really is of interest to the firm or an individual lawyer. Benefits will come in the long-term by engaging with a charitable organisation in a deep and meaningful way.

Does this mean that advertising is cheaper and better than PR as a marketing tool? Not necessarily. Sometimes, if there is a budget, it is worth exploring how all of the available channels can be used together. Advertising can complement PR as noted by Moss. However, he says: ‘Intelligent PR is better than advertising, and the role of advertising has been about presenting the way we lawyer and not what we do.’ Advertising is used by the firm to talk about its attitude and not its functional delivery, and PR is about creating a credible brand perception.

It is also worth remembering that today there are different forms of advertising. Law firms can advertise online as part of a search engine marketing campaign; on TV; in trade magazines and special interest publications; and in local, regional and national newspapers. The cost of advertising on ITV starts at £1,500. Turning to print, placing a half-page colour advertisement in a broadsheet newspaper’s main news section can cost upwards of £11,000, while a half-page spread in the Evening Standard’s ES Magazine costs £8,400. On the web, a Google pay-per-click campaign costing just £0.01, with a minimum charge of £10, can give law firms more control over their advertising budgets; on Facebook, a similar campaign would cost $0.01.

The experts consulted for this article did not think that the advertising campaigns of some of the new law firm franchises were appropriate for most law firms, and were cautious about using celebrities, because this might divert attention from the key messages of the campaign. There are exceptions to this rule. For example, Joanna Lumley’s familial connections with the Ghurkhas and her passion for their cause helped to raise the profile of their equal treatment campaign.

However, online marketing appears to be the low-cost way to go. Social media comes top of the list, but law firms should also have a well-designed, search-engine-optimised (SEO) website too with accessible and informative content. In most cases, search engine optimisation can be dealt with by making sure that the law firm’s website is built within a search-engine-friendly framework like Wordpress. This is free, apart from the technical cost of installation and some adjustments. Some experts put the cost of this exercise at less than £500, but SEO is also about regularly updating the site with content. By this reckoning, low-cost marketing is available for every law firm, regardless of size.

Graham Jarvis is a freelance journalist