Check Under The Couch Cushions; Use This Money To Achieve Your Strategic Marketing Goals

Before making a buying decision, in-house counsel use three tools to discover more information about a law firm – search engines, Web sites and Martindale-Hubbell listings.  An appropriate portion of any integrated marketing program and law-firm budget should be devoted to these areas.

 

“Corporate counsel say that they will first do an Internet search using certain keywords,” said McMurray.  “Make sure that your Web site is optimized for search so that you can be found easily.

 

“With these search results in front of them, in-house counsel will click on the law-firm links that are most relevant to their needs; hopefully, these include your Web site,” said McMurray.  “Once on your site, in-house counsel should find credible information on what they are seeking – something that will set your firm apart.  Update your site with a constant supply of fresh and informative content.

 

“Finally, as they are compiling their short-list of firms, corporate counsel will reference Martindale-Hubbell,” said McMurray.  “I am not an advocate of spending money on random directories or listings, but this is one credential that you must have.”

 

McMurray is CEO and Strategy Architect for Dallas-based Content Pilot LLC (www.contentpilot.net and www.deborahmcmurray.com).  She discussed the strategic allocation of money in marketing budgets at the Sept. 12 meeting of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association, held in Denver at the Oxford Hotel.

 

If done right, a well-planned Web site and a strategic, customized approach to marketing can eat up much of your marketing budget.  Where will this money come from?  According to McMurray, you might be surprised at what you can find when you dig into your law firm’s couch cushions.

 

“’Couch money’ is the term I use to refer to a law-firm’s non-strategic expenditures – the stuff that has slipped through the cracks over time,” said Deborah McMurray.  “Each year, most firms waste at least $1,000 per attorney in expenditures that get the firm no closer to its strategic goals.  There are much better, more strategic uses for this money.”

 

A law firm must have a strategic plan – a sense of where it is headed and what steps it will take to get there.  This plan should include details on the professional contributions to be made by the firm; each practice, industry or client group; and each individual lawyer.

 

All decisions on items within a firm’s marketing budget can then be judged by the answer to one simple question – “Does this expenditure get the firm, the group or the lawyer closer to its strategic goals?”  If the answer is ‘yes,’ then the investment should be considered.  If the answer is ‘no,’ then the money should be reallocated.  This is a simple guideline that is easy in principle, but hard in practice.

 

“The place to look first for ‘couch money’ is in the environment of perpetuity spending – items in the budget that the firm has been funding for so long that they are no longer questioned,” said McMurray.

 

“These can include organizations in which no one is actively involved; public relations firm retainer fees; random, diluted charitable contributions that do not further strategic goals; non-specified tickets to sporting events; and club dues.

 

Another good place to find caches of law firm “couch money” is in individual lawyer M&E spending accounts.  These accounts are too often set at a percentage of a lawyer’s compensation and used for business development meals, entertainment, travel – and whatever else a lawyer’s whim dictates as appropriate.

 

“This category can easily account for half of a law firm’s marketing budget,” said McMurray, “and it is largely out of the marketing staff’s control.  Face-to-face contact is important in a relationship-based business, but lawyers should be asked to submit monthly M&E reports so that marketing can track trends in this area.”

 

Finally, no law firm marketing department should be asked to demonstrate a budgetary “return on investment” for marketing activities over which they have no control.  “I used to think that this was possible,” said McMurray, “but I’ve shifted 180 degrees.  Do not agree to measure any activity until the right management controls are firmly in place.”

 

Find the money to fund essential-but-costly initiatives like strategy-driven Web design, search-engine optimization/marketing and the right approach to Martindale-Hubbell listings.  Where?  Rip that couch apart and take a good look under all of its dusty, rarely disturbed cushions.

Janet Ellen Raasch is a writer and ghostwriter who works closely with lawyers and other professional services providers – helping them promote themselves as thought leaders within their target markets through publication of articles and books for print and rich content for the Internet.  She can be reached at (303) 399-5041 or jeraasch@msn.com