When it comes to growing a successful law firm, one thing is for sure, you are still going to need to be able to market yourselves. It doesn’t matter just how often you find that people need a lawyer, you are still going to need to make sure that you stand out from a rather busy crowd. Without marketing, you simply won’t have the clients that you want or need and you may find it even harder to be a success within your industry.   

Marketing is not always something that you can easily get to grips with, especially if you are not sure where to start or what to do. This is where the idea of a marketing plan can come into play.   

A marketing plan is a key part of your law firm, even as much as the actual service that you provide to your clients. This means that you should give it just as much focus as other aspects of your firm.   

Not sure that you believe me? Think that you just don’t have time to create a marketing plan and instead want to just get on with it?

Here are 5 reasons why you should be embracing a marketing plan for your law firm   

It sets clear goals  

Every business, and this includes professional services, is going to have a goal that they are aiming for in the future. Without a marketing plan, these goals can become a little fuzzy around the edges and harder to focus on.   

With a marketing plan, you can always think about what those goals are that you have for your law firm in the future. You can consider whether or not they are what we know as SMART goals.   

Ask yourself; am I being specific in what we want to achieve? Can I measure whether or not I am getting where I need to be? Have I set a goal that I know that my law firm can achieve and that it is going to prove relevant to who I am and where I want us to be in the future? Do I know how long I have to reach my goals?    

Setting up goals in this way ensures that your efforts will push your law firm in the right direction in the future.

It helps you to target your marketing to your ideal clients  

When you create a marketing plan you are going to need to think about what type of clients you are trying to reach. Having this information means that you can think about what kind of message is going to be best received and how best to deliver it too.   

Whilst it is great to be enthusiastic about marketing and try to broaden your net as much as you can when you are out there presenting your law firm, it is another thing to be wasting time and effort on those clients who are not likely to amount to anything in the future.   

With a marketing plan, you are going to know who you are trying to focus on as well as what you can do to make sure that they will want to choose you.  

Assists in managing your law firm resources   

Resources for any business type can be tight and this means that you are going to want to make sure that you manage them fully. 

Managing your resources may mean that you need to think about the time that your team members spend on marketing tasks compared to other aspects of their jobs.   

Another thing that a marketing strategy can do is to ensure that the time that those staff members spend on marketing is well-spent. That you are making sure that there is no wasted time, without a return.   

Clarifies team responsibilities  

In the world of marketing, everyone has their place. Even those who don’t realise it. You need to make sure that those within your team know what is expected of them and what they need to do to meet their responsibilities.   

You may find that some people can do this on their own, under their own steam, but many others simply may not know what is expected of them as a team member. By making these expectations as clear as possible you are ensuring that the work that you want them to do, and the end goals that you want to reach, are going to be much more realistic to achieve.   

Allows your law firm to amend to achieve  

Even the best laid-out marketing plans for your law firm, can, over time, stop working as you want them to, or not yield the results that you want to achieve for your law firm. Having a marketing plan means that you know what you want to achieve in the future and have an idea of what you need to do to reach it.  

However, it also thinks about what could happen should the approaches that you are taking at the current time, not work. What other measures are there that you could try instead? What things could you change to ensure that you best appeal to those clients and achieve your end goals?   

Rather than setting your plans in stone, a marketing strategy can help you think about what you may need to amend to achieve.  

As you can see, there are lots of things that can be improved by having a marketing plan for your law firm. The main thing is that it allows you to focus on what you want to achieve and gives you a route so that you can then go on and achieve it in the future.   

Take a look at some of my other blogs you may be interested in:

Navigating Business and Marketing Challenges in Law

The Referral Revolution: Transforming Your Law Firm’s Reach

Need help?

If you would like help with your marketing then bringing on a marketing consultant with a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. I work with B2B businesses and professional service firms in London, Kent, UK and Europe as well as specialising as a Legal Marketing Consultant. Please get in touch or book a free 30-minute consultation.