Think of yourself as the CEO of a small-, medium- or large-sized business. Whether your billings are $300K annually or $400 million, you’re in a business that intends to make a profit for its partners. The maximization of profits is realized with intelligent planning and smart management.

Marketing, as one element of your business, is guided by the vision and goals set out in you firm’s strategic plan. Some plans are long and thoughtful, others are brief and goal-oriented and some are scribbled on the back of a napkin. More often, they are lurking in the mind of a Managing Partner and marketing strategies are developed without the benefit of a clear set of goals. The result is often random acts of marketing, albeit well-intentioned.

Marketing Audit

A Marketing Audit gets your firm back on track. It identifies your firm’s most urgent marketing, communication and business development challenges. It is an all-encompassing review of your marketing efforts, corporate image, billing trends and physical space — everything that influences the client or prospective client and more is evaluated.

Trend analysis of clients and practice areas is also considered to gain insight into the most profitable practice areas and clients. The information gained will help identify your highest value activities and ultimately chart the future direction of marketing, assist with the measurement of marketing initiatives and set benchmarking for future strategies.

The results, largely taken from the clients’ perspective, will reveal opportunities to realign and focus your marketing and business strategies in areas that will bring your firm the greatest benefit.

Strategic marketing and business development plans

Strategic marketing and business development plans, which can take its direction from the Marketing Audit, are critical to keeping your firm, lawyers and budget on track. A shared understanding of your priorities and where your resources will flow is simply a prudent business practice. Your customized marketing plan will have clearly identified goals based on your firm’s priorities and tactical activities that will service to retain current clients and attract new work.

Marketing recruitment

A marketing profession should ultimately co-own and drive the plan to fruition. So, this could be the right time to either break ground or scale up on the marketing front. Having recruited more than a dozen marketers, from marketing coordinators, marketing managers and marketing director level positions, I can help you recruit, interview and select the best marketer for your fim.