Legal Marketing & PR

7 Costly Marketing Mistakes

By Tom Kane

Being aware of those mistakes to avoid can improve any law firm’s legal marketing, obviously. I ran across an article by consultant Robert Moment that appeared on RainToday.com that was written for service businesses generally; but can be helpful to lawyers as well.

Robert’s “7 Costly Marketing Mistakes Every Service Business Must Avoid” include:

1. An inappropriate message - concentrating on what your firm does, rather than how a client will benefit from your firm’s services;
2. “Spray and Pray” marketing – failure to focus or require ROI from marketing efforts, and just hoping that they will produce satisfactory results;
3. Not emphasizing “Value” that your firm offers – get to know your clients business and what is important to them;
4. Selling vs. Educating – as we all know, no one likes to be sold, but rather they want to sell themselves. Thus, your time is better spent on educating clients and potential clients on issues, problems, solutions, et cetera that will lead them to hire you;
5. Not testing your marketing efforts to see what is working and what isn’t;
6. Lack of follow up (or, what I like to call not “enhancing the relationship”) – which can be accomplished by picking up the phone, visiting the client, developing a personal relationship, or sending information of any kind to stay in touch (newsletters, articles, press clippings, etc. etc.); and
7. Targeting the wrong or too broad an audience – firms should focus on those markets they most would like to represent, are best known within, and likely to already have a brand.

Not rocket science here, but certainly worth being reminded about.

Full post as published by Legal Marketing Blog on January 24, 2008 (boomark / email).