Five Common Law Firm Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

At Spotlight Branding, we’ve worked with hundreds of solo & small-firm lawyers across the country. As you can probably imagine, in that time we’ve worked with some attorneys that are fantastic at marketing themselves and their practice. We’ve worked with some who really struggle in this area. And we’ve worked with plenty who fall somewhere in between.

I thought I’d take a few minutes today and share some of the most common mistakes that we encounter. Are you making any of these mistakes?

1 – No Defined Objectives. The vast majority of lawyers we speak to don’t have a written marketing plan. Many of them haven’t even given serious thought to their marketing – let alone taken the time to define their objectives and map out a path for achieving them. You need to have objectives. The more specific, the better. How many new clients/cases do you need per month? How many consultations must you schedule to earn that business? Where are those consultations going to come from… referrals, networking, internet advertising, direct mail, radio? If you don’t have a plan, you’re drifting aimlessly.

2 – No Analytics. What’s working and what’s not working with regards to your marketing? Can you even answer that question? For a lot of lawyers, the honest answer is no. You’re investing time and money into marketing and business development. So it’s critical that you’re measuring success in each area. Over time, this allows you to refine your strategy – to invest resources into campaigns that are working, and to cut your losses when things aren’t working. If I’ve learned anything in regards to marketing, it’s that everything doesn’t play out the way we expect it to. Some of the ideas that I think are brilliant don’t pan out. Other ideas perform far better than I would have expected. The only way you can truly understand your marketing performance is by tracking your marketing performance. And then you adjust accordingly.

3 – Missing Out on “Low Hanging Fruit.” We see this all the time – lawyers want to jump straight to advanced, expensive, and speculative marketing campaigns before they’ve mastered the fundamentals. The best example is referrals. The average attorney is only receiving about 1/3 of the referrals they could be receiving from people they already know. Closing that “referral gap” is a huge deal – imagine doubling or tripling your referrals! And it’s not hard to make it happen – a regular e-newsletter and an effective social media presence make a huge difference. But a lot of lawyers would rather talk about SEO or other speculative lead-gen strategies that may or may not work. There’s obviously nothing wrong with creative and sophisticated marketing – but start with the basics, and expand from there!

4 – No Systems. A consistent flow of new business requires consistent marketing – and that means you need to put systems in place. Many lawyers I speak to tend to do their marketing in random spurts, and it’s usually panic-based when they realize that their pipeline has dried up. To avoid the “boom and bust” cycle it’s important to create systems and to work with your team and your outside partners to ensure that the systems are being executed. Whether it’s social media, your e-newsletter, your networking strategy, blogging, PR, or whatever else it may be – put systems in place to make sure they’re happening consistently. Otherwise… it won’t happen.

5 – “Bright Shiny Object” Syndrome. This is similar to #3 above. Don’t get distracted by the latest buzzwords or ideas that you hear about at conferences or online. Don’t get me wrong – you should definitely continue to innovate and to learn. But what tends to happen is that attorneys get excited about something new, and so they abandon what they’ve been doing, even if it’s working. Part of this is a desire for a “magic bullet” that is going to be the solution to all of their challenges. Part of it is human nature – we all tend to get excited about new things. But if you’re constantly chasing that bright shiny object, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. Trust the plan you’ve created. Pay attention to your analytics so you know what’s working and what’s not. Innovation is great, but not at the expense of consistent performance!

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Daniel Decker

Daniel Decker is a co-founder and Partner at Spotlight Branding. In addition to helping lawyers stand out from the crowd, he spends his time writing, dreaming up new marketing strategies, and coming up with catchy subject lines. In his spare time, Daniel enjoys playing sports, guitar, politics, and Minnesota sports.