Legal Marketing & PR

Is marketing working for you?

By Edward Poll, J.D., M.B.A., CMC

Marketers have frequently complained that marketers are not given a “seat at the table” of law firm management. The Legal Marketing Association, in Strategies: The Journal of Legal Marketing, recently expressed the organization’s new definition of marketing: “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.”

That’s a pretty broad statement, yet lacks simplicity and directness. This may be one reason why the seat at the table is still denied to many who claim the title “marketer.”

In my experience, vendors don’t sell, customers/clients buy. If this is true, then vendors must educate the market about the quality, value and availability of their service/product. And educating both the vendor and the buyer is the primary function of the marketer.

One commentary from LMA suggests that their definition is no longer a function (their old definition) but rather an education process.  I don’t get that aspect of the concept from the words they’ve used, but education is the basic function, in my opinion, of marketing.

I use an alternative, shorter definition to describe the function of marketing: It is every activity throughout the day that enables one to persuade another as to the value of his/her idea/service, and the availability to serve the client when the client is in need. Sometimes, less is more.

Full post as published by Law Biz Blog on July 11, 2008 (boomark / email).