Is your firms marketing thinking similar to the Flat Earth Societys

Implementing some basic marketing strategies can help law firms better understand their clients’ needs and enhance the firm’s prospects of success in a highly competitive market, writes Trish Carroll.

Some law firm marketing does seem to be driven by Flat Earth Society thinking. By that, I mean the level of denial that many lawyers exhibit about what clients actually want and how their needs are driving radical change in the industry. Non-Flat Earthers are adapting and changing to rethink many of the traditional ways with which they work and engage clients. Clients do not care if your firm is first-tier or mid-sized, new law or old law, small law or big law, local or global, or niche versus full-service. No, the key for clients is how you can help them in ways that contribute to their success, as well as how much your services cost.

Marketing 101
The first thing marketing students learn is that marketing is about ‘the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs’. Many of the firms that have been established in the past few years, particularly niche or single-service firms, have a substantial advantage over full-service or ‘generalist’ firms. Why? Because they are much better able to understand and target the precise segments of the market they want to capture.

Any marketing is more effective when it is targeted at a narrow audience. Even if yours is a full-service firm, you need to market to narrow audiences within your broader base to ensure you are talking directly to clients about things that matter to them. To do this you need to understand exactly the type of problems they are likely to be experiencing that require legal assistance, or the type of opportunities they are trying to capture.

Marketing is about having a strategic game plan that involves identifying a narrowly defined target audience with a problem that you have skill in solving. You need to let your audience know that your firm has lots of experience in solving problems like theirs. This is where digital marketing can be highly effective because you can use your knowledge to educate clients and targets about issues and your expertise in resolving similar issues. Done well, this generates awareness and business leads.

If your firm is a generalist, you should use this approach to run multiple, different campaigns. If your firm is a niche player, you should still run multiple campaigns about aspects of your niche. I am talking here about client-focused marketing, known in marketing parlance as the SIVA model (Solution, Information, Value, Access). This is an approach that gives the 4Ps of marketing a stronger customer focus:
Product = solution
Promotion = information
Price = value
Place = access

Understanding the 7Ps
Over time, the 4Ps have become the 7Ps of marketing. They are:

1. Product
What you are offering to your clearly identified market, its features and its benefits – there is no point developing a service that no one wants to buy or for which there is a very limited market.

2. Promotion
Everything you do to promote your services and communicate their value – good promotion paves the way for dialogue and this is where digital promotion and social media enter the mix.

3. Price
This needs no explanation, except that many lawyers prefer not to talk about it in the explicit and concrete ways that most clients would prefer – and your service is only worth what your target clients are prepared to pay. It is also closely linked to the position you want to own (e.g. budget or first class).

4. Place
Where and how you deliver your service – office, shopfront, online offering or through referral channels.

5. People
The ones who you want to buy your service, and your own people – both are equally important.

6. Processes
The processes that support providing the services and the behaviours of those who deliver the services.

7. Physical evidence
A service cannot be experienced before it is delivered, which is why demonstrating your firm’s capability and track record is very important.

Paying dividends
Some of the newer firms entering the Australian market in the past year or so, and those that have been phenomenally successful in the US and UK markets – such as Seyfarth Shaw, Riverview Law, Nabarro and Axiom – demonstrate a clear understanding of SIVA and the 7Ps. These models are tried and tested marketing methods.

These firms understand that the vast bulk of customers buying legal services, whether they are sophisticated in-house legal departments or SME business owners, want better value from their legal dollar. This involves all the aspects of SIVA and the 7Ps. It is not just about your legal expertise and it is not just about price – it is about the total package.

Flat Earth Society lawyers overestimate the importance of price. They think the obsession by sophisticated clients to drive down costs is, in fact, to lower costs, when usually it is about driving up value. Yes, price is important, but clients have hundreds of other things that are also important, such as settling the case sooner rather than later; getting the transaction completed with minimal risk being taken on; achieving regulatory compliance using better systems; achieving workplace safety; acquiring rights to valuable property; obtaining better than expected development approvals and so on. Achieving these sorts of outcomes with a partnering mindset in place and in a cost-effective way leads to mutual business success.

Time to listen
Firms that truly understand their clients can deliver on marketing’s objective: the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs. The firms I have mentioned are built on a platform of meeting client needs in a sophisticated way. They use many non-lawyers, such as project managers, data analysts, legal process experts and proven and disrupting technologies to produce better results.

These firms are at the vanguard because they have gone out and truly listened to clients, understood and acted on the implications of what they have heard, and invested in the people, the thinking and the systems to elevate their value proposition. Along the way, they have captured the attention of the markets they target.

Which lawyers do I put in the Flat Earth Society category? They are the ones who continue to act on self belief about what clients want without properly doing what is needed to understand those clients – and, as a consequence, they act on incorrect assumptions. The good news is that membership of the society is voluntary!

Trish Carroll is the founder of Galt Advisory, an advisory firm focused on helping firms and individuals devise successful business strategies. Trish can be contacted at trish@galtadvisory.com.au.