Marketing for lawyers

An important aspect of the business side of law is marketing. That is true for every law firm, from the sole practice through to the large firm. In this continually changing world, marketing is becoming ever more important. In fact, just as you ignore cash flow at your peril, in today’s world you ignore marketing at your peril.

First of all, when I am talking about marketing, I am not talking just about advertising. Advertising may be part of your marketing plan, but it does not need to be.

Secondly, I am the first to admit that I have much to learn about marketing. As lawyers we are taught little about marketing in our training. There is a module on marketing in the Law Society’s Stepping Up programme and it is a very useful module too. But there is more to learn and, like the law itself, it is important to keep up to date.

Although many of us struggle with the concept of marketing, this is certainly not true of all law firms. Some are marketing themselves very well indeed – others, like our firm, pay lip service to it.

In this issue of LawTalk, we take a look as some ideas on how to market a firm.

One way of looking at marketing is that it is focused on good communication – good communication with both potential and existing clients. These clients also possess a wealth of information that can help us market our business even more successfully. It is a matter of utilising that opportunity.

I was interested to read that for professional firms such as lawyers, marketing has two aspects. The first is that we need to attract people to our businesses. The second is that when people start coming through our doors, we need to provide a great service.

There is, perhaps, nothing that markets us better than satisfied, even happy clients letting their friends, colleagues and acquaintances know about the outstanding service we have provided them.

One very important reason I am in the law is to provide my clients with the best service I can. My aim, and I am sure that it is the aim of every good lawyer, is excellence of service provision. I would like to provide that excellent service to as many people as possible, and that may mean needing to grow our firm. That is why marketing is so important.

I encourage all lawyers to read carefully the marketing articles that follow in LawTalk. Picking up one or two ideas from the experts may assist in retaining and attracting the all important client.