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Summary of Law Firm Marketing Trends, 30 Years After Bates v. Arizona

Posted on by Amy Campbell

The above title would be a better headline for the article in Law.com’s Legal Technology section, which carries the headline Good Law Firms Turning Virtual instead. The article, by Stacy West Clark, The Legal Intelligencer, is a nice summary of recent trends faced by law firms in a dynamic marketplace 30 years after the first lawyer advertising was allowed. If you are new to legal marketing, or if you ‘re realizing you should be paying more attention to it as it affects your firm, this article is a great start. Among the trends:

• Large firm’s are spending $3 million to $9 million on marketing

• De-equitization is happening to lawyers who don’t have books of business

• Lawyers are competing with non-lawyers in some areas

• And, oh yes, alternative law firms — or virtual law firms — are cropping up such as Axiom Legal, which according to the article is “the country’s first virtual law firm…. The firm’s list of clients is extremely impressive, boasting some of the country’s best-known companies.”

Link to the article for more…

Posted in Law Firm Marketing

Law Firm Marketers Puttin’ on the Ritz in Boston for LMA New England Conference

Posted on by Amy Campbell

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The Legal Marketing Association – New England Chapter Annual Conference takes place this year at the Ritz Carlton, Boston Common, on Thursday, November 15 and 16, 2007. This conference is always a good mix of learning, people, food, fun and prizes. I hope to see you there. Here’s a preview of what’s on tap.

Thursday afternoon pre-conference event

How to Grow Your Client Base: Marketing and Sales Excellence for Law Firms
Mike Schultz of Wellesley Hills Group and RainToday.com will share benchmark data from the research report, What’s Working in Lead Generation, best practices in marketing and selling professional services (which I have reported on previously in this blog).

Friday full-day conference

Breakfast keynote:
Make Rain by Being You: Developing Business by Leveraging Each Lawyer’s Unique Qualities
Craig Brown, Esq., Business Development Consultant, David Freeman Consulting Group

Concurrent sessions (morning)

  • How to Help Lawyers Develop Better Business Plans & Assure Follow-up
  • Website Best Practices: The 2007 AmLaw 100 Web Site Research Study
  • Behind Closed Doors: Why 9 out of 10 Service Professionals Fail the Prospect Meeting

Concurrent sessions (afternoon)

  • Strategic Review and Outlook for the Legal Services Industry: Closing the Client Focus Gap
  • An Insider’s Guide to Proving Value to Firm Management
  • Communicating with Lawyers about Marketing: How to Run with the Bulls, Charm Snakes, Dance with Wolves… and Live to Tell About It.

For more information and to register, download conference brochure at lmanewengland.org.

Posted in Law Firm Marketing

Ten Tips for Law Firm Success

Posted on by Amy Campbell

John O. Cunningham has just served up a steamy plate of advice for law firms hungry to emulate the behavior of the most successful law firms. It is the latest feature article on Legal Marketing Reader, and it’s titled: The 10 Habits of Highly Successful Law Firms. It’s a must read for attorneys as it answers that constant burning question: “What are the other firms doing?” In my experience, attorneys will often want to compare their firm to other firms, however, once they learn what other firms are doing, they often make excuses for why they don’t do something similar. There is some very good advice in this article, read it, and take it to heart.

Posted in Law Firm Marketing

Is Being Green a Marketing Differentiator or Requirement?

Posted on by Amy Campbell

The U.S. Postal Service dedicated an entire issue of its Deliver magazine to environmentally friendly practices. The issue offers a green marketing audit and asks the question, “Have we reached the Green Tipping Point” where eco-friendly practices have crossed over from luxury item to business staple?

Get more green articles to go…

Posted in Marketing

Don’t Forget the Power of the Traditional Press and Other Do’s and Don’ts

Posted on by Amy Campbell

In this age of electronic media, it’s easy to get caught up in leveraging your web site and e-communications, that you spend so much time and energy on them, you neglect the old tried-and-true pieces of your marketing/sales/customer relationship mix. Here are a few real life scenarios that recently reminded me that e-communication is only one piece of the puzzle.

Don’t forget traditional PR.
A client of mine was interviewed at length recently in a national consumer magazine. How effective is PR? I’d say pretty darn effective! As a result of the publicity, the number of visitors to her web site tripled and the number of pages viewed increased three fold. (See “Pages Viewed” chart below.)

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Power of the press: Pages viewed coinciding with consumer magazine article

Now, does this negate the point of my earlier post that Web Sites Rule in Lead Generation? No, not at all. While the article was what captured people’s attention, the fact that my client (a plastic surgeon) had a web site with exclusive photos and video animations (content) of a specific procedure mentioned in the article was the magic bullet. Soon after the article hit the newsstands, queries to the web site under the doctor’s name and this procedure skyrocketed. If there had not been a web site for more information and follow up, the power of the article would have fallen short. Together, they pack a powerful one-two punch.

Don’t forget to ask for the business.
I have a friend who is a professional photographer who has had great success farming leads and getting new clients from his efforts of building an online presence with several web sites that are carefully and strategically search engine optimized. When things slowed down at the start of the summer, I asked him, “have you picked up the phone and called some of your favorite clients?” Oh yeah. It’s easy to get caught up in the electronic side of things. It’s important to remember to shake the tree, talk to folks, ask for the business. Apres summer is a great time to reconnect!

Do pick up the phone.
One more story. My brother, who works in television in Hollywood, was following up on a pitch he had made to an old colleague. When he e-mailed some information and then didn’t hear back, he began to worry. A day or two later, he got a phone call from the colleague who chastised him saying, “Don’t you know that I’ll take your calls!” In other words, as an old friend, he had already earned her trust and she preferred to do business in real time by phone. Are you hiding behind e-mail when communicating with folks who’d love to hear from you? Call them up and see. What’s the old saying? Reach out and touch someone? Better yet, pay them a visit.

Posted in Marketing, New Media / Internet

Summer Reading: Bookmarks Outside Your Box

Posted on by Amy Campbell

tinis1.jpgHurray! It’s Summer! Time to reboot… refresh… relax… and read something outside the realm of your everyday worklife. Here are a few bookmarks from my vacation week reading, that while outside the box of legal marketing, have some interesting ideas and lessons that apply. I always find it refreshing and inspirational to read information from other niches or industries and apply it to my world. Here are a few you may find of interest too. Enjoy!

Hotels:
Your customers are silently judging you right now

Consumer Goods:
Slideshow: Knowing When It’s Time for a Packaging Makeover
Article: What a Packaging Makeover Can Do For Your Company

Business C-suite:
The Most Dangerous Job in Business
It’s the chief marketing officer. Chances are, yours is just leaving.

Donuts:
Give ‘Em Something To Talk About
Your product may be good, but will it spark a conversation?

Lemonade Stands:
Slideshow: 10 Tips for Creating the Coolest Lemonade Stand Ever

Design Thinking:
CEOs Must Be Designers, Not Just Hire Them

Posted in Law Firm Marketing, Vacation Files

Is Recruiting the Next Frontier in Law Firm Marketing?

Posted on by Amy Campbell

Article pointer>>>: Is This Any Way to Recruit Associates? by Elizabeth Goldberg of The American Lawyer, takes an in-depth look at the U.S. law firm associate recruiting process and how it differs from major corporations and other professional services firms.

“Banks and consulting firms use sophisticated testing and interviewing techniques to hire talent. So do big law firms in the United Kingdom. While a handful of U.S. law firms are experimenting with new approaches, the vast majority of Am Law 200 firms are sticking with a recruiting system that hasn’t changed much since the early 1970s.”

Meanwhile, law firm recruits — particularly those from elite schools — describe a process fraught with “short interviews, shallow questions and a sheaf of boilerplate marketing materials,” according to the article.

Read the entire article here…

Posted in Law Firm Marketing

LOL! Law Firm Names

Posted on by Amy Campbell

For all you legal marketers out there pushing for a shorter version of your law firm name, take heart. While your firm’s name may be a mouthful, just be thankful for what you’ve got.

Here are some real branding challenges offered today by the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog and its readers in the post, Law Firm Names That Are Funny. More evidence of a history of law firms being run on ego and so inwardly focused that they are blind to the perception in the marketplace.

laugh.jpgPayne & Fears

Low, Ball & Lynch

Slaughter & Slaughter

Weiner & Cox

Smart & Biggar

See the WSJ post for more.

In the final irony, these links are already making their rounds on the internet due to the WSJ post, and said firms will likely reap a good amount of exposure from their funny names! Giggle, Gaffaw & Snorte!

Added August 14: Here’s a more serious discussion of law firm names and branding on Law.com, Name Games Loom Large in Mergers.

Posted in Law Firm Marketing

Lawyers Slow To Embrace Blogs ABA Survey Says

Posted on by Amy Campbell

The annual ABA Legal Technology Survey Report is out and shows again that law firms are slow to adopt new technologies. There is a convenient audio summary audio summary by ABA’s Laura Ikens that discusses the results in brief covering e-discovery, blogs, and podcasts.

The interesting (though not surprising) piece to me was the low awareness and use of blogs in legal services (I first wrote on blogs as a law marketing tool in April 2003!)…

According to the ABA survey, even though it is recognized that blogs can be a great marketing tool, they are “not catching fire just yet.” Only 5% of firms (responding) produce a blog. And as awareness tools, blogs are still underutilized: more than 50% of respondents never use blogs for current awareness of current events, 22% use blogs less than once a month, 12% use them 1 to 3 times a month, and 12% once or more a week.

Furthermore, using RSS feeds and aggregators is even less common and less understood. 83% of respondents never use RSS (syndicated news feeds), and only 5% use them use them one or more times a week. Ikens reports that this low usage could be a matter of terminology as those who use tools such as MyYahoo! or iGoogle may not know they are using RSS feeds. (Aside: This is one reason why I developed Legal Marketing Reader, a web site that pulls together the headline feeds from the top blogs on law firm marketing, which sidesteps the user’s need to use or understand RSS, and just have an easy web site to bookmark for keeping up with law marketing news.)

As I said, I am not surprised by the ABA findings regarding law firms’ and attorneys’ slow adoption of these technologies, as my experience supports it. While I am sold on the benefits of blogging, lawyers as a group tend to be more cautious and risk averse. Similarly, the term and concept of RSS feeds is difficult for most people understand (see earlier post on slow adoption of RSS). And, RSS takes that little bit of extra time to set up and understand, that frankly, most busy professionals just don’t have.

That being said, the fact that others are slow to adopt these technologies, means that they are still very valid ways for motivated individuals, departments or firms to differentiate themselves, promote expertise, self-brand, and provide value to their clients and industry segments.

Go to this blog’s home page.

Posted in Law Firm Marketing, New Media / Internet

Web Sites Rule in Lead Generation

Posted on by Amy Campbell

I’ve been meaning to post on another item of interest from RainToday.com’s “What’s Working in Lead Generation” (for professional services firms) that I originally referenced in this previous post. It is the question asking participants, Where would you spend an extra $100,000 in your sales and marketing budget? As you can imagine the answers were across the map, but the respondents most wanted to spend their $100k on a new web site. According to the report:

“Websites carry a special triple whammy regarding their addition to lead generation.

A) They generate leads in and of themselves through search engine placement.

B) They are the conduit for many other lead generation tactics. Regardless of how a prospect finds out about a firm, they almost always check out, and often make their inquiry through, the website.

C) Because websites are always “on” and everyone can look at them, leaders at service businesses are acutely aware of how they look, what they say and (often more importantly) what everyone else says about their website.”

I was happy to read this (as I help law firms develop their web presence) — and my experience confirms it. I’ve noticed a definite increase in firms (especially on the smaller end) realizing that they need to take the web more seriously. Traditionally, many lawyers have believed that they don’t really need more than a billboard web site as their business is “a relationship business,” and “we get most of our business through referrals.” But even in a relationship business, the web has become what I like to call, “the resource of first resort.” When a potential client does receive that all important referral, what’s the first thing she does? Turns to her computer and types your name into Google’s search engine.

Firms are waking up to the fact that their web presence plays an increasingly important role in how they are perceived and that it can be used to effectively to help build and strengthen existing relationships.

Other popular answers to the $100,000 question (which is nice to dream about, huh?): hiring additional staff, contracting with outside providers for branding/awareness and lead generation services, and more.

Where would you spend the dough?

Posted in Law Firm Marketing, Marketing, New Media / Internet

‘Legal Marketing Reader’ Makes Tracking Law Firm Marketing News and Blogs Easy!

Posted on by Amy Campbell

Legal Marketing Reader Goes Live! If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably going to want to bookmark this web page I put together to help legal marketers keep up with the best in blogs and other web resources: legalmarketingreader.com.

The web site gathers headline links from the top blogs on law firm marketing topics and assembles them all on one page for easy access that saves you valuable time and helps you avoid a lot of junk. It’s a work in progress, so let me know what you think. And stay tuned for more announcements as the site improves.

Posted in Law Firm Marketing

New Connecticut Attorney Advertising Rules

Posted on by Amy Campbell

The Legal Marketing Association New England Chapter just sent out an update to its members regarding the new Connecticut advertising rules and a recent opinion regarding confidentiality of e-mail communications received via web site.

New Connecticut Advertising Rules
Any firm or individual lawyer promoting legal services in the New England region needs to be aware of Connecticut’s new advertising rules slated to take effect on July 1, 2007. These new rules require the electronic submission of advertising as defined by the state of Connecticut Judicial Branch.

E-mail Content Transmitted Via Website
A recent Massachusetts Bar Association (MBA) advisory ruling with respect to prospective client communication via firm websites states that absent of appropriate disclaimers, prospective client communication transmitted via email links from a firm’s website must be held in confidence. (See report in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly).

Just passing along this good information. Thanks LMA New England.

Posted in Law Firm Marketing

Law Firm Marketers’ Favorite Business Books

Posted on by Amy Campbell

I recently conducted a quick-and-dirty e-mail survey* of a select group of law firm marketers and consultants to get a read on what they read. More specifically, I asked these thought leaders to name their favorite marketing/sales/strategy books that I could recommend to readers of this blog. What I got back was a long list as many different favorites emerged. Two author names, however, came up again and again.

Leading the list: Malcolm Gladwell for his popular business books The Tipping Point and Blink; and David Maister for The Trusted Advisor (co-authored with Charles Green and Robert Galford) and Managing The Professional Service Firm. (Both author’s also have their own blogs — check out what they’re up to next at Gladwell.com and at Maister’s Passion, People and Principals.)

At first I was surprised that Gladwell was appearing on the favorites list of so many legal marketers, but his books, after all, are best-selling business books and written in an entertaining story telling style. That legal marketers, who are often out in front at their firms in terms of business thinking, would enjoy and look to apply Gladwell’s observations to their own situations then is not so surprising after all. In fact, I found Blink, subtitled “The Power of Thinking without Thinking,” to have a huge impact on my own approach to marketing, when learning how quickly and subconsciously we all make split-second decisions based on the tiniest of cues.

Maister may be less known in the pop business press, but has attained guru status as author, speaker, blogger, consultant on the topic of professional services management. The Trusted Advisor is viewed as the bible for any professional services provider. A good habit for law firms would be to give every new hire a copy to be used as a handbook for his/her client service career. That law firm marketers are reading both these authors is good news for their firms and the clients they serve.

Below is the summary of the survey results.

The Top Ten (multiple nominations)

1. The Tipping Point and Blink – Malcolm Gladwell
2. The Trusted Advisor and Managing The Professional Service Firm – David H. Maister
3. The Woman Lawyer’s Rainmaking Game: How to Build a Successful Law Practice – Silvia L. Coulter
4. Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing – Harry Beckwith
5. How to Win Friends & Influence People – Dale Carnegie
6. Legal Business Development: A Step by Step Guide – Jim Hassett
7. SPIN Selling – Neil Rackham
8. Client at the Core: Marketing and Managing Today’s Professional Services Firm – August Aquila and Bruce W. Marcus
9. Move the Sale Forward: Increase Your Sales Through Human Connections – John Klymshyn
10. Law Firm Associate Guide to Personal Marketing and Selling Skills – Beth Cuzzone and Catherine MacDonagh**

Also Recommended (single nominations)

Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: 7 Powerful Tools for Life and Work – Marilee G. Adams
In Search of Excellence – Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
The rainmaking machine: Marketing, planning, strategies, and management for law firms – Phyllis Weiss Haserot
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! – Al Ries and Jack Trout
Influence Without Authority – Allan R. Cohen and David L. Bradford
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In – Roger Fisher, Bruce M. Patton, and William L. Ury
Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution – Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble
The End of Advertising as We Know It – Sergio Zyman
Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands – Marty Neumeier
Rainmaking Made Simple: What Every Professional Must Know – Mark M. Maraia
The Brand You 50 : Or : Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an ‘Employee’ into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion! – Tom Peters
Marketing the Law Firm: Business Development Techniques – Sally J. Schmidt
Influence: Science and Practice (4th Edition) – Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.
Even Eagles Need a Push: Learning to Soar in a Changing World – David Mcnally
Hope Is Not a Strategy: The 6 Keys to Winning the Complex Sale – Rick Page
Trust-Based Selling: Using Customer Focus and Collaboration to Build Long-Term Relationships – Charles H. Green

Do you have a favorite book to add to this list? Click on “comments” and let me know.

*Twenty out of 40 persons responded to this survey

** Available in June from ABA Books.

Posted in Books, Law Firm Marketing, Marketing

Business Development Pipeline Is “The Missing Link” of Law Firm Marketing

Posted on by Amy Campbell

I come to law firm business development from the marketing and communications side of things — branding, graphics, web sites, brochures, newsletters, writing, informational content, etc. (the awareness and positioning piece). When I landed my first law firm client, I immediately joined the Legal Marketing Association as I realized I needed to learn about the legal industry and how to better market legal services. I continue to learn and observe, and I try to share much of it here on this blog. Here’s my latest observation:

The business development pipeline is the missing link of law firm marketing.

What is a business development pipeline?

It is the keystone in the whole process of marketing the law firm, where the rubber hits the road. It is simply a list that assigns and under which individual attorneys assume responsibility to contact and pursue new business/expanded business relationships. But to be effective, it must be used as part of a deliberate process of identifying new business prospects, making contacts, scheduling actions to be taken, following up on actions, reporting on actions, measuring results and reporting and recognition of efforts/outcomes. Firms that adopt a pipeline system will succeed at increasing business. The problem is that most law firms feel they can skip over this because they are “kind of” doing it already. And they don’t have time. So, it never gets done.

Sales pipeline basics

guide_cover_web_4.jpgThere are many ways to create a pipeline, also called a sales funnel, and they are all pretty similar. They always start with current clients, a review of revenues and a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). Here’s how Jim Hassett describes it in his book Legal Business Development, A Step by Step Guide. (What I like about his book is that it is written with the busy attorney in mind. You can pick up the book and approach any chapter in any order, and get valuable tips to put into action right away.) In Chapter 5: Your Practice Group Marketing Plan, Hassett writes, “A marketing plan for a practice group or an entire firm provides a big picture framework for deciding which business is worth going after, and which isn’t.” “Once goals are defined, the next step is to identify your target audience. Just write down the names of people who have potential for new business that will help you meet your goal. If you don’t know their names, start with job titles, or organization names.” His book provides many tips on understanding the sales cycle and on using sales pipelines and CRM software, but a tool as simple to use and manage as an Excel spreadsheet will do.

According to Hassett, “I am a big believer in using group reports to motivate lawyers. When I coach groups of lawyers, I use weekly reports to help create a culture that encourages business development and celebrates success.” He recommends measuring client advances, defined to mean any step that brings a client closer to a new engagement. Action is the operative word here. Writes Hassett, “However carefully you develop your marketing plan, it will be wrong. The only question is: will it be wrong sooner, or wrong later?” The plan, then, “should be made just good enough to direct action, and then tested in the real world.”

Putting it all together

Firms have become more marketing savvy and are busy developing and refining their brands, logos, web sites and marketing collateral. That’s part of it. And lawyers are out there selling — whether they know it or not, or whether they use that word or not. But what many firms are missing is the commitment to a strategic and concerted effort to shake the tree to get more of the business that they most desire. When it all comes together, you will have a brand and a marketing strategy that differentiates, marketing and sales collateral that support all of the key areas of business and client types that you are a pursuing in order to achieve your business development goals. Integrated and ongoing. Think about it. Or go back to your cave.

Posted in Books, Law Firm Marketing

48 Tips for Better Writing, Reporting

Posted on by Amy Campbell

Valuable footprints from this month’s National Writers Workshop in Hartford, Connecticut have been left on this Poynteronline blog, 48 Tips in 48 Hours, a collection of practical reporting and writing ideas. Even if you’re not a reporter with a beat, many of these tips are applicable to many kinds of writing and general business situations. A few of my favorites:

  • #7: Keep it simple… (click through to read more)
  • #23: Write a killer lead…
  • #21: Rewrite the lead… and the whole damn thing…
  • #26: Be the expert…
  • #40: Ask yourself why do my readers care about this topic now?
Posted in Communication Tips, General, Marketing, New Media / Internet

More on the Advantage of Being Smaller

Posted on by Amy Campbell

This article by Stephanie Lovett for The Legal Intelligencer, Midsized Firms Could Benefit in Climate of Firm Switching, identifies a downward trend in client loyalty as a “hiring frenzy” — as she describes corporate clients “trying firms on for size” with the ultimate goal of reducing the overall number of firms used. These “secondary law firms” writes Lovett, are in the best position to capitalize on the trend. “While secondary firms range in size,” the article states, the situation is “an extraordinary opportunity for midsized and smaller firms.”

The reasons given:

  • aggressiveness of these firms to “exceed expectations by being flexible, creative and responsive”
  • being more hungry for business — being more creative and proactive
  • differentiation through exceptional client service.

Additionally, a firm’s “perceived commitment to help” is key.

Read the full article for more.

Related posts:

Advantages of Boutique Law Firms

Law Firm Client Satisfaction Down, Hiring on the Rise

Posted in Law Firm Marketing

Want Business? Survey Says: Pick Up the Phone

Posted on by Amy Campbell

I was given a press copy of a recent benchmark study by the Wellesley Hills Group, “What’s Working in Lead Generation,” which provides plenty of insight into professional services firms attitudes and activities in getting new business. What caught my eye right away, was what participants identified as their top 5 most effective lead generation tactics:

1. Making warm phone calls (to existing clients)
2. Speaking at conferences
3. Running our own in-person events
4. Becoming members of professional industry organizations
5. Connecting with press contacts

1756.gifIn a competitive market (84% of respondents expect a “significant” or “moderate” increase in their lead generation efforts within the next 2 years) whether you are a boutique firm or a large firm, you should expect that your competitors will be contacting your clients and prospects — by phone and at events. Also, if you’re workday is anything like mine, the default forms of communication have become asynchronous (e-mail, texting, etc.). There is now added value in a phone call — seems like it really is the next best thing to being there.

For more information, you can download an executive summary of the report, which asked 700 professional service firm leaders about their lead generation activities. I will post some more revelations once I get further into the study.

Posted in Law Firm Marketing, Marketing

Law Firm Marketer’s Hit List

Posted on by Amy Campbell

Anne Malloy Tucker, chief marketing officer at Goodwin Procter, was the featured speaker at the Legal Marketing Association New England Chapter luncheon. Her 30-minute presentation titled “Facing Reality — Stretched Too Thin and Can’t Do It All” is a law firm marketer’s hit list of where to focus energies for best results. Here’s the 60-second, sound-bite version.

Have a strategy: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Balance stuff and strategy: Figure out what you can do quickly and efficiently and create the infrastructure to serve the firm in an agency style (stuff), and “allow time to pull out to do planning (strategy).”

Set and communicate goals: “You don’t want people to ask — what are these people doing?”

Concentrate on clients: (read with emphasis!) “If you do nothing else, focus on your existing clients.” “Client feedback and satisfaction surveys are the best thing you can do.”

Narrow your focus: For instance, Goodwin “chose six industry areas based on historic strength, attorney visibility, where markets are going and which practices are more commodity-proof,” for pro-active marketing dollars.

Strengthen web presence: “Your web site is the portal to your firm — people are using your site to validate and compare.”

Measure! Measure everything: financial metrics, client feedback metrics, market metrics. Avoid bad metrics — the “how manys” — quantity data is worthless on its own.

Granted, my summary misses many details. That’s why you should try to attend the next LMANE luncheon. See you there?

Posted in Law Firm Marketing

Advantages of Boutique Law Firms

Posted on by Amy Campbell

godinMass High Tech takes a page from Seth Godin with its article Small: The New Big, which discusses how bigger isn’t always better for law firms looking to differentiate themselves. The article points out how tech boutiques sell on expertise and reduced overhead, and even in an age of law firm mergers, some firms prefer to remain small, specialized and nimble despite buyout offers from the big firms. While the phrase “small is the new big” may not have been coined by Seth Godin, he definitely has made it famous with his best selling book by the same name. Here is his original blog post from a couple years ago on the concept. May it inspire others to stop emulating what you’re not, and start emphasizing the unique value and service that you can and do offer your clients. (Disclosure: The Mass High Tech article features my client, Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton.)

Posted in Client News, Law Firm Marketing

First Law Firm Web Site of 2007

Posted on by Amy Campbell

Start. Run. Grow. Protect. Profit.

mbbp.comThat line reads like a new year’s wish, but it is the everyday, client-focused objective of Waltham, Massachusetts based law firm Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton. I am happy to report the launch of its new web site — the first of 2007 from Infoworks!. It went live on January 1st at mbbp.com.

MBBP focuses exclusively on the core legal services that businesses need to succeed. The firm’s attorneys assist businesses of all sizes — from startups to Fortune 1000 companies — in these service areas: Business Law, Technology & IP, Employment & Immigration, and Taxation. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Happy New Year!

Posted in Client News, Law Firm Marketing
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