The Need of Marketing in Law Office Management

It has been repeatedly stated that a law office is still a business. Thus, it is safe to say that, in some respects, it needs to be treated and managed in the same way a business would be. 1 While there may be some who argue against such a statement, a lot of managerial tasks and techniques used for law offices are taken from business management. Marketing, for example, is one such instance.

Why Use Marketing For A Law Office?

It could be argued that marketing is unnecessary for a law office. Many operate and gain customers through their reputation, word of mouth, and repeat clients. Some clients find a lawyer or law office without any assistance from the firm itself. They may have been given the contact information for a firm or had their lawyer provided for them through legal channels. Why should a law office go through the time and expense to generate marketing tactics when people are already seeking them out without being prompted to?

What most law offices fail to realize is all of that is a form of marketing, even though it's a free and largely effortless means of marketing. They forget that people have to actually know about the office in order to seek out its services in the first place. Staying quiet and depending on others to spread the news isn't going to work. If anything, remaining quiet with marketing can cause a law office to fall into obscurity and ultimately fail. For a law office to succeed, or at least keep themselves operating long enough to have a chance at success, they need to market themselves. The follow are just a few benefits that a law office can have with effective and successful marketing.

Audience Awareness- Marketing requires a business to learn who their customers really are. For a law office, this can help them identify their client base and give them an idea of who is using their services. As marketing allows for an increase in a firm's client base, any information about a firm's existing client base can be incredibly valuable. Marketing also allows a law office to identify and focus on the needs of their client. 2 That information alone can be applied outside of marketing purposes, like for a case or in developing a relationship with a client.

Competition-Marketing requires a business to take a good hard look at who their competition is. According to the American Bar Association, there were 1,315,561 actively practicing lawyers in the United States in 2016. 3 That's a lot of competition, to put it mildly, even without thinking about how those actively practicing lawyers are divided into firms and offices or their locations. There can be dozens of law offices in a single city, all competing for the attention of the same client base. Anything that can give those offices an edge over their competitors can make a world of a difference in their chances of being successful. With the different specialties available for law offices to choose from, not all firms in an area are going to be directly in competition with one another. Using marketing cannot only give an office an edge over their competition, but it can also help them identify who their competition is.

Self-Reflectivity-For law offices, marketing can provide valuable information on how the office is doing that it might not be able to find anywhere else. The information used in marketing is gathered through self-reflection, looking at things such as audience, reputation, strengths, and weaknesses. It can be humbling for some, and provide a necessary reality check for those lawyers who have developed an ego about their abilities. It is possible for a person to professionally plateau instead of continuing to grow. That same information that is used for marketing can be used by a firm to identify problems, places it's lacking, and how it can grow and improve.

What Strategies and Tools Work Best?

While law offices need to take a business approach with marketing, it does not mean that strategies and methods that work for businesses will work for a law office. All marketing techniques are designed to help a business, but not all techniques are designed to be universal. There are some strategies that are better suited to certain businesses or industries. This is often an issue with what a business offers and who their audience base is. Some marketing tools work better with a specific audience and that information needs to be taken into account when choosing strategies.

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The following marketing strategies and tools are ones that have proven to be successful or useful for law offices. Their presence in this list is not a guarantee for marketing success, nor does it mean that these are the only strategies that a law office can use. Keep in mind that this list is a suggestion, not a command, and is not designed to limit the possible options available. Each strategy can be modified or altered to fit the needs of the law office, should it be necessary.

Community Outreach-The stereotypes about lawyers as uncaring moneygrubbers can persist enough to affect a law office's image. Effective marketing can help dispel that viewpoint and it is best to use tactics that show that the office cares about their clients. Once such way is to do some kind of community outreach. It connects the staff of a law office with their audience, outside of the professional relationship of a lawyer and client. A law office can do things like sponsor local groups or events that are happening in the community. Staff members at the office will have their own involvement in their community that may give the firm an idea of what they can do. For example, a staff member has a child on a youth sports team. The firm could offer to sponsor that team, or another one like it in the community as a part of its outreach.

Websites and SEO-The biggest marketing tool that is available is the internet. Businesses often choose to have a website representing them online and as a means of communicating with their audience. It's a central location that can hold all the identifying information about a law office that clients will need, including how to contact the office, who works there, what services they offer, and when they are available. A law firm can boost the effectiveness of their website as a marketing tool by increasing their visibility. 4 Using SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, can push a website's ranking in search results online. Most potential clients will search online for lawyers or law firms near them when they need legal services. The higher the ranking a law office's website sits in the results, the more likely they will see it as trustful and choose it.

Use Your Networking-Lawyers generate many professional connections throughout their careers. Those connections can be made up of current and former clients, law colleagues, past employers, mentors, and anyone else that they have interacted with in the legal system. That network of connections can be used to a law office's advantage as a marketing tool. A law office can get client referrals and needed assistance through their network. It can allow access to information that an office can use for their benefit or the benefit of clients. Networking can also give a law office a set of trustworthy references that supports and nurtures a positive reputation.

Social Media-Social media platforms are the fastest way for information to travel. With marketing, using social media can be the best way for a law office to reach their audience. There are dozens upon dozens of platforms available and most can be connected to each other and the business' website. Law offices can use social media as a way to connect with their clients and spread information about their services. Most social media profiles include an "About" section where the profile holder can put information about themselves. For example, a law firm could put their contact information and business hours in the About section of their Facebook page. They can also use it to find out new information that is relevant to their clients and to their business as well, as social media is one of the outlets that news pieces spread the fastest on. A law office can take those relevant news pieces and share then with their clients on social media and get almost immediate feedback in response.

Stay Current-Coming up with content ideas or approaches for marketing can be problematic. The easiest marketing strategy out there involves paying attention to what is going on in your market. Issues that are relevant to a law office's specialties can arise and impact what their clients are looking for. Clients often hear about those issues through media and news sources. "News jacking" is a marketing strategy that allows a firm to track those issues and learns about them. 5 Staying current on what is going on within a law office's market gives them an advantage over their competitors. Using something like Google Alerts or Shepard's Alerts by LexisNexis can help an office pick up on the relevant breaking news as it happens.

Common Marketing Mistakes

Marketing is not an exact science and there is plenty of room for errors. For law offices, it's no different. What they do for their marketing and how they deliver it to their target audience has a significant impact on their success. Any mistakes that they make will hinder their chances of reaching their audience. Making those mistakes can prove to be a learning experience that is beneficial to the firm, even though they can be damaging. However, it is better to understand what possible marketing mistakes can be made in law office management before they happen.

Not Adapting-One of the biggest mistakes that a law office can make with their marketing-or that any business can make-is sticking to the same old methods. The market and economy is going to change no matter what is done, so what worked before those changes occurred isn't necessarily going continue working. Law offices that fail to adapt their marketing to changes made to their audience, their market, and their industry are going to be overshadowed by their competitors that do. Marketing adaptations can be made through new technology-the internet, social media-or things like target audience.

Misidentifying Your Target Audience-Knowing who is a part of a law office's target audience is essential for their marketing to succeed. Being unaware or mistaken in identifying a target audience can result in a lot of time and money being wasted by a firm. 6 The demographics of the audience is what determines the finer details and specifics of a marketing strategy. A law office needs to know who their clients are in order to identify their target audience. The wrong information about your audience will result in the marketing strategies being directed at them to fail.

Denying There's A Problem-There isn't a single marketing strategy that is going to be 100% perfect. There is also the chance that a strategy can be used incorrectly-e.g. directing it at the wrong audience, as mentioned above. In order for any law office to find success with their marketing, they have to learn to admit when they've made a mistake and acknowledge a problem when it happens. Staying in denial about how a law office's marketing is going, or even denying the fact that a law office needs marketing in the first place, can be suicidal from a business approach. 7

Using the Wrong Strategies-As stated earlier, some strategies work better than others and some are more suited for certain industries and businesses. A law office that uses the wrong strategies for their marketing is only going to run into problems. Their marketing will simply not work the way they want it to, no matter how hard they push those strategies. Using the strategies that best fit the needs and goals of the law office as a whole is going to allow the office to meet those needs and goals. Evaluating the results of a strategy can help determine if it's actually working. Looking at what a law office's competitors are doing with marketing can also help determine if the right marketing strategies are being used.